Almost a year ago I purchased a set of color gels on Amazon but never got around to actually trying them out. Recently, after watching Blade Runner 2049 and being smitten by the gorgeous cinematography by the legendary Roger Deakins, I just had to play with them. Not only that, the original Blade Runner, shot by Jordan Cronenweth, is one of my biggest influences ever so this shoot was bound to happen.
Instead of editing your images in post to inject color into your shadows, you can use gels to do it in-camera. Here’s a 6-minute video from photographer Jay P. Morgan at The Slanted Lens demonstrating 4 different methods.
There is a progression that takes place in the journey that is our lighting knowledge: ambient light > on-camera flash > bouncing that flash > off-camera strobes > gels.
In a recent article, I spoke about the best ways to perfectly light your background with colored gels. We covered the best things to keep in mind if strong and vibrant colors across your backdrop are your objective. It turns out that gelling your background is actually relatively simple -- it's keeping those strong vibrant colors that's actually the tricky part.
At first glance, it seems like an easy thing to achieve: how hard can it be to get a great looking gelled background in your portrait?