I have been building my school photography business over the last several years, and a request that I often get is to be able to offer multiple background choices. I know Lifetouch offers 4 or 5 different colors and I am wondering how they do it.
Does anyone know how they are doing this? Are they shooting green screen and then using a digital background or do they have multiple backgrounds on site and swap them out? Knowing how fast the school shoots go I would think it has to be digital.
Any insight would be appreciated. I believe I can pickup quite a few more schools if I can add this to my menu of services.
swoop wrote:
They make collapsible backgrounds. Like a reflector. Quick to setup and you just need a stand.
That is what I use, when I have one station setup we will use one color. If 2 stations are setup we either have 2 of the same color or 2 colors.
I can't imagine having to change those potentially on every picture though. If we were to offer 4 background colors for a smaller school (under 300 kids) we would only have 1 shooter. We typically have about 30 seconds with each kid at the most so constantly changing out the background would lengthen that time quite a bit.
Nathan Whitchu wrote:
They use a pretty simple lighting setup, two background lights with a kind of reflector for a hairlight, main and fill.
Thanks for the info, I may have to check into that and see what I can do. I certainly don't want to add a lot of processing time, but if done right I'm sure it works pretty well. Have you shot for Lifetouch or are you just an observant parent?
I shot for Lifetouch for several years, although when I left they were still shooting film almost 100%. They equipped their underclass photographers differently than those doing senior portraits for 12th graders. (At the time I was there Lifetouch was like GM. Underclass was Chevy while seniors a/k/a "Prestige Portraits" was Caddy.)
Underclass shooters either carried one painted muslin background or they used a proprietary front projection system. Since their light system and camera were closely linked to ensure exposure accuracy, the front projection system was too.
For seniors, I used a Denny 4-background holder. Each background was 5' wide (although they did offer a 6' system too). At the time the backgrounds were attached to spring-loaded rollers like window shades. I see they're now showing a Portable Lift System with chain drive. While I haven't seen this it looks similar to the Manfrotto "Expan" stuff.
Denny has this stuff on their site, of course. Look for their "Portable Chain Drive Backdrop System. SKU: PCDS."
The four backgrounds I carried were a standard "old masters" for traditional stuff, black, white, and the 4th was rotated depending on the photographer's preference, what was in stock or the phase of the moon. We also had sets of Rosco gels and once the traditional head-n-shoulders stuff was done we were encouraged (required) to use gels to vary the background tone from shot to shot. We also carried silver and gold "space blankets" we'd gel with gold or blue gels for close up shots which were almost always the kids' first choice for wallet prints.
Rosco sells 10x12" kits with a dozen or so gels per kit. The Cinegel Sampler and CalColor Kits are a good start.
sjlocke wrote:
...some sort of light system that changes the light color on the background for each shot.
Photogenic used to have a gadget that would let you swap back light gels remotely from the camera position. I found one here. I know nothing about this site but included the link so you can see the device.
minatophase3 wrote:
henryp, that is probably how Wagner portrait does it. Now I just need to find something like this. I am guessing that B&H doesn't carry it.
As far as I can tell the Photogenic gel swapper is discontinued. If it was a current product we would certainly list it.
I have been shooting schools with a fellow photographer this past month and have just started using a green screen. Those sets have not yet come back from the lab but the sample shots we did for our posters do look quite impressive. The keen observer will notice, however, the occasional green cast in (blond) fly away hair, but otherwise the knock out program works well. I feel the technology is now good enough to make this a viable alternative to transporting and setting up multiple backgrounds.
What type of knock out program are you using? Is it fast and easy to use? Applying that to 600 images sounds like a lot of work.
Tim
Tim,
I'm not actually doing the work on these (other than shooting and retouching) but will inquire what the lab uses and let you know. BTW, lighting is not a problem, just as long as it's even and there are no shadows (goes without saying).
The photographer I am working for does not want to reveal the program name. He is a member of a group that have chosen this program because of it's "secret sauce" and is the only one in the area to use it. He is afraid of loosing his advantage in this regard should this info get out and others in our area begin using it also. He had a difficult time convincing the lab to use the green screen program for us, but in the end they decided it was better than loosing the business. After viewing the proofs today I can say the results are very good though.
I wish I could help you with this, but I had no idea it was so top secret!
