In my endless quest to find a way to light my background for photographing kids on the floor, I thought of something that never occurred to me. Why not position the background light above the subject, angled down towards the background?
This way I won't have to A) worry about kids touching my lights and B) find innovative ways of hiding the light from the actual shot, Austin Powers style.
Plus it solves the problem (when gelling) of non-gelled areas below the line of sight from a strobe positioned on the floor.
The only problem with doing this is that I would have to move my hairlight elsewhere. It is currently above my backdrop angled down towards the subject.
Does anyone else do this or can anyone advise me for it or against it?
If it works, my plan is to mount a magic arm (above the drop ceiling) to the joists. This way when I break down my set, the arm retracts behind the ceiling tiles out of sight.
I actually attempted a setup like this a short while ago. I mounted my monolight on a boom, positioned just behind the subject and overhead, angled down. I gaffered a reusable Glad tupperware lid (transparent pink color) to the front of my 40 degree grid and was very surprised with how nice and pink the background came out all the way down to the carpeted floor. I'm thinking I'll need barndoors though to better control the light.
Will have to post pics later tonight after I tweak things around a bit.
