St. Louis High School Senior Portraits | Studio Backgrounds

I had my holiday party for my senior models and their friends last Sunday. While I was at it, I had some backdrops that I received from The Drop Shoppe and Bad Sass. Of course, when they arrived it was hotter than Hades in my warehouse and the thought of asking pretty models to shoot in there was not an option. Then, I got slammed with fall sessions. Finally, I had my chance! Wanted to show you these:

This particular drop is from The Drop Shoppe. I don’t know if Heather is selling it, because I designed it. I wanted my own “bokeh” style background so I had her put two different color/tones side by side on the back of one of the drops I ordered from her. I think it looks AH-mazing! The original background is an 8 x 10 foot drop so this is basically a 4 feet by 10 feet. Bigger than a lot of backgrounds these companies will typically offer. I have stash of prom dresses in the studio that we picked up really cheap in 2010 when DEB was having a clearance sale.

These next drops are actually tri-split drops from Bad Sass. Now, a lot of what people use these drops for are newborns. They are quite a bit smaller in coverage. You get to choose your two backgrounds and then a floor in the middle. I ended up tacking it up horizontally so I had three different drops. This allowed me to do more tight-headshots only, but still giving my subject something more unique to take home than boring, traditional drops.

Here’s a pull-back of those from my cell phone:

These are the drops I ordered for this one, specifically:

Blue Damask

Wood

Pink Damask

My only wish was that I could have had the damask prints rotated as now they are sideways. Though, I don’t think they look too bad in the finals.

I notice in a lot of photos I see around on Facebook from photographers using these types of backdrops are putting their subjects too close to their drops. This can create shadows and cause you to end up lighting too much of the drop instead of the subject. Then, you can really tell it’s fake. For this, my subjects were about 4 feet away from the backdrops. I had my light, camera right to each subject, specifically lighting on THEM, not the drops. The fall-off of the strobe will end up lighting your drop just fine, and enough to make it more natural. I didn’t use any kicker lights at all for these shots and I still like them.

People always say, when they see my studio work: I wish I had a studio, or I have no place to use indoor setups. This is really such a small and easy setup! You could tack a drop up to your garage wall (no need for a backdrop stand that is bulky) or basement walls that you don’t have all finished and pretty. I used ONE light! Just one. You could use your speedlight on these if you don’t want to buy a studio light. And, heck, you don’t even need the giant octo-box that I use. It’s doable!

Thanks to BadSass and The Drop Shoppe!!!