background help

[aragonwhite]

what would make a good background if I cant get a hold of any muslins or paper for now to work with? I see some people use sheets and denim. Would a background light be able to change the color of these? I have colored gels and would like to learn to play with them a little. Thanks as usual for the help.

[GSansoucie]

If you have a second strobe and gels, then a white background is a good idea. Just like you mentioned, you can bounce a gel-coated strobe off the background to change its color. This should work fine for head shots.

You can actually head to WalMart/Target/Kohls/etc and get a white sheet for a background.

I also have a black background that I use most of the time. It is "duck cloth", I bought a large roll of this from a fabric store last year. I like the thickness, but I don't like the fact that the wrinkles do not come out easily.

[jhayes]

For smaller backgrounds (taking pics in a light cube), Hobby Lobby has dozens of different 12x12 sheets from bright and busy to subtle semi-solids and antique styles. I got one of each for a total of over a hundred different pages. They take up practically no room to store and can offer a huge amount of different looks/textures for photographing smaller items. Michaels has quite a few too.

Look, ma, my first post!