✨As a beauty and fashion photographer, my job is to not only make the subject look good, but make also to make their skin look great as well.
We can go into the lighting, or the post processing part of things, but today, we’re going to be looking at something that doesn’t have much to do with your subject’s skin itself, but rather the background used to help compliment it.
My two favorite backgrounds for flattering subject’s skin tones, whether it’s lighter or darker are:
👉 Savage Universe Beige
👉 Savage Universal Cocoa
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Lighter skin tone setup
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For the lighting I am using one of my go-to setups for photographing skin which is a Westcott Scrim Jim 8x8' and a bare strobe. Basically a scrim jim is a large frame with diffusion material just like a softbox, however because it’s larger, it creates an even softer light source, and unlike a softbox, I can position the light independently of the box - since they aren’t attached.
Scrims come in different sizes, so don’t worry if you don’t have a big space for an 8x8' one. But remember, the larger your light source is compared to the size of the subject, the softer the light will be and the more flattering the skin will be. We’re not using a beauty dish here for example which is very specular and shows a lot of highlights and contrast. We want soft, beautiful skin.
After testing a bit I realized that the light on the background didn't quite match as closely as I would like the subject's skin as there wasn't as much light hitting it.
In order to fix this and counteract the fall off of light the background, I could either move the subject and lighting closer to the background (think inverse square law) or introduce additional lights. I opted for the latter because I can control exactly what I want to do and added 2 small white umbrellas. This proved useful because I was able to also feather the lights toward the subject a bit and create a kind of rim light on her face giving a bit more pop to her skin.
So which of the 3 setups do you think flatter this subject’s skin tones the most? (4:47) Drop a comment below and let know. 👇
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Darker skin tone setup
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For this setup when I want to flatter a subject’s darker skin tone I opt for the cocoa background. I’m going to start off building the lights just like the first setup, using the just scrim and seeing how that goes first. In this case I’m going to reintroduce the 2 background lights to lighten things up. Now if you only have one strobe you can definitely achieve this by simply moving the subject and entire lighting setup closer to the background.
Adding the lights to the background once again helped match it to the subject’s skin tone a bit better and in my opinion helped to flatter her more. I had to tweak the position of the lights because although they were turned down to their lowest setting, I still wanted less light on the background and had to move them back a bit.
✨ Drop a comment below and let me know if you experiment with your backdrops and if you found these tips for flattering skin tones useful. 👇
🔥 Also be sure to check out my forthcoming beauty class: lindsayadler.photo/beautyclass
💡 Main light: Scrim Jim
💡 Light 2 & 3 - Small umbrella with diffusion
📸 Gear Used:
✅ Canon EOS R5: adorama.rfvk.net/JxzdE
✅ Canon RF 24-105mm: adorama.rfvk.net/Rk5Qy
✅ Profoto D2: adorama.rfvk.net/qvB7y
✅ Profoto Small White Umbrella: adorama.rfvk.net/dvR1j
✅ Westcott 8x8' Scrim Jim: adorama.rfvk.net/KNZ5a
✅ Profoto air remote: adorama.rfvk.net/W3o5G
✅ Avenger D600 boom arm: adorama.rfvk.net/XRdAG
✅ Tether Tools tether cable: adorama.rfvk.net/avr5q
✅ Savage Seamless Beige backdrop: adorama.rfvk.net/zkmEr
✅ Savage Seamless Cocoa backdrop: adorama.rfvk.net/Le5Wj
🔥 To learn more about lighting definitely check out my class Master Studio Lighting: invite.lindsayadlerphotograph...
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