How to choose a photography backdrop
If you’re wondering how to get started with choosing the right backdrop for your photography projects, read on! If you’re just starting out with backdrops, there are a few shades that are more widely usable than others. When you’re able to build up your collection a bit more, I’ve made suggestions about what might come next.
You can think of them having 3 ‘tiers’ of usefulness, based on how often you might want to use each colour. I’ve called them:
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Essential
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Nice to Have
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Luxury
WHERE I GET THEM
I like to layer up several backdrops to build up textures and colours: it’s one of the ways for me to disguise the tiny space that I shoot in! My backdrops are made here in the UK by Hand Painted Backdrops. Their designs are either off-the-shelf or bespoke and are the best I have found. The drops are produced from heavyweight artists’ canvas - the lovely thing about this is that they have beautiful texture and because each one is hand painted, it is also unique. You get to have a studio item that absolutely no-one else has.
TRANSFORMING YOUR SPACE
I’ve made the textured canvas drops a central feature of my look and you can learn some great ways to pair them up with your clients’ clothing, studio furniture and with each other. If you’re a small-space photographer, maybe photographing at home, these drops are a great way to transform your space into something else. Throw in a rug or vinyl flooring and your space becomes a new room each time!
Scroll through the gallery below to see some selections that work well and to get some inspiration!
WANT TO LEARN MORE?
If you’re interested in learning about how to produce photography like this, or to learn about colour matching, retouching, set design and lighting in this style you can check out our Cinematic & Dramatic Portraits Masterclass. It’s over 8 hours of detailed, practical instruction and comes with the editing, retouching and colour grading tools that helped to produce these images.
Tier 1: Essentials - Warm Grey.
Goes with pretty much everything! If only one backdrop was available, this would be the one to go for. If you like to have colour grading options in Photoshop, these mid greys have plenty of options with tonal editing.
Cream
This neutral shade can be paired with plenty of wardrobe options. It’s especially good for women and girls, in my opinion, and I use this colour all the time!
Olive Green
Another muted tone that doesn’t draw too much attention to itself. This pairs very well with plenty of clothing and furniture options.
Tier 2: Nice to have - Fawn/beige
This is another shade that will not get in the way of the person in the image. It pairs well with other neutral shades, as you can see here.
Pale/cool grey
I love using this neutral shade especially for black & white images.
Mid Blue
Versatile and muted ā€‘ mid blue shades can go very well with yellow, which is sometimes a difficult colour to pair up effectively.
Mustard/dark yellow
This is a beautiful shade that compliments darker skin tones especially well.
Nut Brown
This super warm tone has an Autumnal feel and goes well with shades of yellow, red and green.
GRANITE/SLATE GREY
This is great for a dramatic, lowā€‘key look.
Mid/Bright Green
This is absolutely stunning with red & pink wardrobe ā€‘ I love to use this shade often.
Peach
This is a really pretty colour that can give a lovely, feminine result.
Tier 3: Luxuries - Orange
This bright hue can give your images a sunny, cheerful vibe and could be useful, for example, for a headshot for a comedian.
Red
Red has all kinds of cultural and artistic associations. I like to use this muted shade of red if the wardrobe matches well. You can see that this backdrop has an aged/industrial finish which I love.
Ice Blue
This tonallyā€‘cool shade is a ‘special use’ backdrop! It definitely does not go with everything but when it shines, it really shines.
Baby Pink
This is a soft and pretty tone that is also very striking. You can see that the small, pink backdrop has been used as part of a layered setup here, which gives the illusion of more space than I really have!
Textured Blue
I love this backdrop and mostly see it as a ‘special use’ item. Actually I often shoot this as black & white, because the textures look extra nice that way!
Dusty Pink
Another striking tone that matches up very well with green elements in the image.
Splash/Art Drops
I have a few small drops like this one: bright colours and wacky designs that look great in small doses, set against a more muted tone. They look cool clamped up on a cā€‘stand, as you can see here.
