# Overblown background



## KrisHunt (Dec 19, 2011)

You all know who Yuri Arcurs is, right? Would anyone be able to make an educated guess as to how he achieves his signature look with the overexposed background with a blue cast? Example

I assume he uses a CTO gel with white balance set to Tungsten to give the background a blue cast. I've had so-so results with that. But the thing that really stumps me is how to blow out the background without overexposing the subject. High ISO is out, because his photos are always noise-free. Slow shutter speed is unlikely for various reasons. The aperture is obviously opened up quite a bit because of the blurriness of the background, and yet the subject is always entirely in focus. I'm wondering if the rooms he shoots in are mostly white to make the background seem brighter and to turn everything into a reflector.

The closest I've come to duplicating that look involves masking a duplicate of the model in Photoshop and overexposing the background. I sure would like to learn how to do it the right way.


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## Vtec44 (Dec 19, 2011)

Spot metering on the face or meter a grey card?  If you have enough distance between the subject and the background, it can still be out of focus at f8 or higher.


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## tirediron (Dec 19, 2011)

I don't see any blue cast.  This looks pretty simple to me:  Place the model well in front of a mainly white background, use a large aperture, meter for the background @ 1 stop over, and then add light(s) to the model as required to acheive desired exposure.


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## unpopular (Dec 19, 2011)

^^ yep. spot meter for the background, increase exposure about +5ev light the model artificially by adjusting intensity. Any bluish tint can be controlled by adding a yellow gel to the model's lighting and compensating in post.


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## KrisHunt (Dec 19, 2011)

Yes, I think most of my troubles would go away if I had a large white room with large windows, but alas, I do not. I've never tried gelling with yellow before; only CTO, which usually makes skin tones too orange, regardless of how much I mess with the white balance in post. I'll try that, thanks!


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## DiskoJoe (Dec 20, 2011)

This would be done using filters or adjusting the color curves and not adjusting white balance. Probably lens filters, but could be done in post. The over exposure is the easy part. Just shoot wide open during the day.


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## CCericola (Dec 20, 2011)

Why don't you just ask Yuri? 

Photography community reaches global for selling photos | Yuri Arcurs


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## unpopular (Dec 20, 2011)

DiskoJoe said:


> This would be done using filters or adjusting the color curves and not adjusting white balance. Probably lens filters, but could be done in post. The over exposure is the easy part. Just shoot wide open during the day.



Nah. You'd essentially take a tungsten source either by gelling the strobe or using an incandescent light on the model, and then white balancing for the model. This will render the natural light bluish, not requiring any additional local adjustment in post to get the effect.

You don't want to use camera filters, since this will affect both the artificially lit model and the available lit window equally.


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## Stryker (Dec 21, 2011)

I'd go with Tirediron's answer


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## KrisHunt (Jan 17, 2013)

Here is a better example. The background is clearly blue-tinted and overexposed, and the man&#8212;who is so close to the background his shoulder is actually leaning against it&#8212;isn't.

Do you think a CTO gel was used here? I tend to think it wasn't, because of all the examples I've seen of the CTO-tungsten trick, none leave the skin tones looking as natural as this. Also, since the man is so close to the background, any orange-colored light should show up on the wall by his shoulder, and it doesn't.


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## thetrue (Jan 17, 2013)

Maybe an orange gel and adjust WB for it..........?


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## curtyoungblood (Jan 17, 2013)

Watch this: Using Grid Spots: A Lighting Tutorial - The Slanted Lens, particularly around the 3:30 mark.  

It isn't quite as extreme, but it is pretty close, and all you'd need to do to make the background bluer is to add more CTO or blue to the background. Also, I'm pretty sure that 2nd shot has a light hitting the guy from the side that is gelled blue.


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## cgipson1 (Jan 17, 2013)

KrisHunt said:


> Here is a better example. The background is clearly blue-tinted and overexposed, and the man&#8212;who is so close to the background his shoulder is actually leaning against it&#8212;isn't.
> 
> Do you think a CTO gel was used here? I tend to think it wasn't, because of all the examples I've seen of the CTO-tungsten trick, none leave the skin tones looking as natural as this. Also, since the man is so close to the background, any orange-colored light should show up on the wall by his shoulder, and it doesn't.



Still just a bright background (reflective glass in this case) and metering for the subject...  no big deal.... if the background is bright enough.....

If not.. like John (Tirediron) said....


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## amolitor (Jan 17, 2013)

The blue tint could simply be window glass tints. It looks to me like he shoots indoors in front of large windows on very sunny days. The gives him a relatively dimly lit foreground which can can then light with strobes. Large windows in commercial structures often have some color to them.

The second does seem to have a blue hairlight, which could be a gelled strobe, could be light coming through a tinted window, or could have been done in post.

ETA: In the studio you might be able to accomplish this with a projector and some stock of backgrounds. Project an image of whatever, get the projector quite far out of focus. This isn't gonna be that bright, projectors don't have THAT much juice typically. Now overexpose that in the camera, and light your subject with strobes dialed down quite a ways. You're gonna be playing mostly in the dark here, but whatever works, right?


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## KmH (Jan 17, 2013)

Wow! Over a year later.

Apparently, not a pressing issue. :lmao:


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