Do I shoot on White Background?

One of my corporate clients recently commented that the majority of my images are shot on a dark background – asking why?

First, I do shoot on other color backgrounds, including white (more on that in a minute). But ask any photographer if they have a preferred color, and most will choose one or 2. For me, I tend to lean more towards darker colors – deep grey, black, or blueish/grey. I lean towards darker backgrounds for several reasons – first, I find that the person stands out more on a dark background, even if they’re wearing darker clothing and/or have dark hair (although I will lighten up the background so the clothing/hair doesn’t get lost in the background(). Second, people with fair skin on a white background can look a bit washed out/less contrasty. We perceive their skin as lighter as it appears to blend in more with the background than a darker color. Darker backgrounds feel a bit more elegant/classy, and can add a bit of drama, intrigue, power to a photograph. And shades of grey go with virtually any color on a website. If you have a white background for your website and have a white background for your headshots, those images will appear to “float” or have no definition of where the website background ends and the photo background begins – you’ll need to put a border/something around the image.

We also know that the viewer’s eye is drawn to lighter areas of a photograph – for headshots, you want the viewer’s attention focused on the subject’s face/expression, so a white background can be a bit distracting, sending mixed messages as to where they viewer should look. HOWEVER, this is all subjective and not a rule – for clients who come to my studio, we can/do shoot different backgrounds (including white) to see how the images look, as well as to provide a variety of looks for different purposes.

Having said all that, white is very popular and I do have a number of clients who use white backgrounds for their corporate site, and we still get great images. Take this shot of Daniel at Houlihan Lokey – a worldwide investment banking firm with offices here in Boston - their corporate standard for headshots specifies a white background for new hires. Achieving a pure white background takes a bit of care – you actually don’t want to light the background with too much power as you can get unwanted “spill” – light reflecting off the background onto the subject. To avoid this, we shoot with enough power to get the background about 90% of the way to pure white, and then boost the background to 100% in post processing.

But ultimately what draws you into a headshot photograph is the expression, energy (assuming the lighting is good) and overall look. In this case, Daniel nailed it. His smile looks genuine, you can feel his energy – and the white background looks pretty cool!