Welcome to day 29! Today's challenge is a photography challenge which means you must take a NEW photo for this challenge. Your challenge is to take a photo with a black or very dark background behind your subject. I got interested in trying this when my daughter took a self portrait for a class assignment. I scrapped it here: Then I started noticing more images with black backgrounds - portraits, stills, animals, nature photos. Here are some examples I found on the web. They are quite striking, don't you think? There are a couple of different ways to approach this challenge. The first and easiest is to simply take a photo of someone or something against a black background. You could use a black sheet, tablecloth, posterboard, curtains or find a black wall or dark wall in deep shadow. Another option is to use your camera to achieve the effect. The trick here is proper lighting. A light source that illuminates your subject but not the background is helpful. Experts suggest placing your subject next to a window or other source of natural light in an otherwise dark room. Shut all other doors and cut other sources of light in the room. This is what I chose to do and I found it pretty effective. Here is one of the photos I took with my iphone using this technique. In order to get the really dark background I used the exposure slider on the camera to under expose the shot. I shot this at -1.7. You can get to the exposure slider by hitting the little arrow toggle at the top of your phone camera screen and then selecting the + - icon from the options. Ignore the subject of these photos! Just wanted to show you the menu options. I know not everyone has an iphone. Whatever your device, you should be looking to adjust exposure and under expose your image. Of course you can also use a DSLR. Justine (@bellbird) was kind enough to offer some examples of how she achieved a black background using a couple of different methods. She used her ipad as a light source and shot with her phone. The first with birds against a grey wall... and the second with blackberries using black paper as a base and background. Feel free to tweak your black background in post processing. You can adjust levels and contrast or even use the brush or burn tools to get the darkened effect. However, please do not use an app that simply pops a black background behind your subject. The point of the challenge is to experiment with your camera and try something new. To Recap, here's the challenge: 1. Take a NEW photo with a black/very dark background behind your subject. The subject can be anything, but must be visible against the black background. The background must also be visible, please do not crop your image so tightly that I cannot see the black background. 2. Scrap that photo. You may include more than one photo on the page. At least one photo must have the black background and it should be easy for me to identify. Here's my page: And one from Danica (@weaselwatchr ) Please Remember the general rules which apply to all MOC layouts: Your page must be a new page in order to count for the Month of Challenges. Your page must be posted in three places: Uploaded to the TLP Gallery (not an outside hosting site). Posted in your page thread you created in the MOC Layouts Folder. You should have one post per completed challenge page. If you complete all 31 challenges, your thread should contain 31 posts. Please do not comment in the participants’ page threads so we can keep them clean. Posted in this thread. People can comment here if they wish. Your page must contain Lilypad product (pages with photos and font only do not count). If you use product from other stores, your pages must contain at least 75% current Lilypad product (currently for sale in the store from either permanent designers or guest designers).
Questions/Clarifications To clarify, I am looking for an almost solid black or very dark background here. Almost as if you had gone into a studio and made a photo against a black backdrop. It doesn't have to be perfect - you can see from the photo of my daughter above that there is still a bit of a shadow and the outline of a frame hanging on the wall. But the idea is that the only source of light is directly on your subject leaving you with a black background. Or of course, you can use an actual black background. For this challenge your photo should be a color photo. Your subject should be in color against a black background, not a black & white photo.
Thanks for hosting, Ashley. I loved experimenting with a dark background, and your examples were really helpful. Mine
Oh my gosh... my daughter & I tried about 10 different shots and this was least blurry, and we busted a gut looking at them, she said it looks like the photo in a ransom note!! Bwahahahahaha... 2022-29-MOC-Challenge- Photo with black background:
I'm actually glad you mentioned that. I want to check that out. However, please don't use it for this challenge as it is basically a black & white photo. I am looking for a color photo against a black background for this challenge.
I used Ashley's method to take this photo against my bedroom window with my iPhone. Original photo is in my page credits. Thanks for introducing me to a new photography technique!
Thank you for the challenge! Early morning photo, with one light source, visible in the glass reflection.