From backdrop to set

Plants at the foot of the backdrop

The simplest way to turn a backdrop into a set is to bring something in front of it. Shrubs, branches, moss or heather along the bottom edge, and the line where the canvas meets the floor disappears.

That line is the only thing telling the viewer this is a backdrop. Cover it and the photograph starts to look like a place rather than a set.

Props make a story

The same goes for things other than plants. A chair, a stone, an old ladder or a canvas laid on the ground give the subject somewhere to settle and the photograph something to say.

Painted canvas takes this well, because its surface is already alive. It does not compete with the foreground; it settles in behind it.

Backdrops work outdoors too

A canvas backdrop does not have to stay in the studio. Hung on a stand it works outdoors as well as in, and daylight does something to the surface that flash does not.

Outdoors a backdrop also solves a problem: it removes an uncontrollable landscape from behind the subject while keeping the light, the wind and the ground of the place in the frame. The result is an outdoor photograph with studio control.

Wind, rain and frost

Wind is the main obstacle. Canvas works as a sail, so the stand has to be properly weighted, and on a genuinely windy day the shoot will not happen.

Water is not an immediate problem. The backdrops take a small amount of moisture, and drizzle is perfectly workable.

Cold needs time. In hard frost the canvas can wrinkle a little, but it settles again on its own. If you move a backdrop to another location in freezing weather, allow time for it to straighten out on site: the paint and the fabric need their own time to react to the change in temperature, and it is not worth rushing.