White wall wonders

The white wall is the ubiquitous panacea for fashion photographers. There's so much that you can do with one white wall that I could do a whole workshop with just 1 light and 1 wall. In fact that might very well be the title of the first (and potentially second) workshop :)

The pictures you see here were taken at our MUA's place (Kat) for a nice change of pace but yet providing an oh-so familiar feel. In fact, the only way you can tell that this isn't my white studio wall is by the wall's texture.

Why is the white wall the a fashion photographer's panacea? Well for starters it creates a background and more importantly a frame that can be manipulated. You can set your model on the background or away from it and control either dependently or independently the brightness of the background. Offering even greater versatility is the white wall's ability to reflect light and fill in shadows. WIth one light you're going to be able to create dimensionality/depth with a single light source. The fill can be feathered and controlled again with the light source regardless of whether it's the main light or another light. The white wall creates contrast, punch, generates powerful black-and-white images, and is nearly ubiquitous as I mentioned above. Oh and did I mention the shadows that you can generate? Even the shape of the shadows relative or independent of the model could be an entire clinic. Did I mention the texture of the wall coming into play? In my studio, I implement smooth reflective walls that offer more than just fill but often an entire mirror image in the wall.

And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head. The possibilities are endless. The next time you're bored, try mixing it up on the white wall and do something different!