3 Ways to Hide a Messy Background | Take and Make Great Photography with Gavin Hoey

Gavin Hoey

Gavin Hoey is a freelance photographer, writer and trainer of all things photographic. His work is regularly featured in photography magazines, websites and videos.
Gavin has a real passion for sharing his photography and Photoshop knowledge. In 2008 he started recording and uploading video tutorials to YouTube. These quickly gained a large following and to date his videos have been viewed over 20 million times.
In 2010 Gavin was the winner of Adobe’s “Next Photoshop Evangelist” competition and since then he has given training demonstrations in Photoshop, Lightroom and Photoshop Elements in the UK, Europe and the US.
In 2012 Gavin joined forces with Adorama as a presenter on Adorama TV, where he inspires and teaches photographers from around the world in the art of photography and post processing.

Sometimes the dream of working against a blank studio wall meets the reality of life and you find yourself shooting in a junk-filled room. That’s exactly the situation face in this video by Gavin Hoey and he has three very different ways to disguise a cluttered background… and none of them include tidying your room!

Starting with the simplest solution, Gavin uses a small background and compression to cover the mess and place his model against a clean grey background. Next Gavin makes use of the inverse square law. By exposing his model and underexposing the clutter, the end result is a rich black background.

Finally, Gavin explains why blurring out the background doesn’t work in a small studio before filling the room with smoke, adding in some colorful backlight, and making the messy background complete disappear.

Interested in learning some additional tips and tricks for working with backgrounds during a photo shoot? Take a look at these guides on 42 West:

PRODUCTS USED: