Create drama with lighting

How do you get the photo on top verses the one below?  Read on.  When you light everything and use a white background this is what you typically get on the bottom. TIP: to get a clean white background, be sure the background is 1 stop greater than the subject. Also slightly angle the background so it isn't perpendicular to the camera or you will get a light flare caused by the background. (Figure 1)

I like to light parts of a scene and not all of it.  If you light everything as done in the photo above it gives a sterile or even feeling of the after life and living in heaven. If I want that look then I might use this lighting setup.  The other advantage of even lighting the subject can move and spin and the light will look the same and you don't worry about shadows in the wrong places.

Figure 1 was done using this setup.  There are three lights on the background and two on umbrellas lighting the statue. (Figure 2)

Using the two umbrellas like in Figure 1 I now just used 1 light on the background, but now with a blue gel.  Because it takes very little light to affect the white background the two lights on the subject are spilling over to the background and washing out the blue color. (Figure 3)

This is the lighting setup for figure 3. (Figure 4)

By just changing the background from a white background to a black background and everything else the same as in Figure 3, now the blue pops. The reason is the black sucks light as opposed to reflecting light like the white background. (Figure 5)

I personally like to have more drama as in this photo of the golfer with the blue background fading out to black around the edges. 

As you can see everything is the same, There are actually two changes: 1) White to Black Background and 2) 4 times the light through the blue gel.  Just remember to get the gel to look the same color as you see it, it must be 2-stops brighter on the background than the light on the subject assuming you expose for the subject. (Figure 6)

Just changing the gel and leaving everything else the same I can now decide which color I like best. (Figure 7)

Here is what the setup looks like in figure 7. (figure 8)

Changing back to the white background I again get contamination from the front lights and it goes pink instead of red. (Figure 9)

For me this photo is too pink and there is pink light on the subject.  This happens when you are not controlling your lights. Learn to control the lights by not lighting everything up like you do with umbrellas.

Figure 9 setup. (Figure 10)

This is shot on the white background.  I changed the setting on the background to -2 stops under the setting of the subject. I removed the umbrellas and put 10 degree grids on the lights. (Figure 11)

Here is the setup for figure 11.  Everything goes black except for where the light is hitting.  This is how you can control the light and not light the whole room. (Figure 12)

You don't need to use gels to get a dramatic effect, but the more you learn not to light everything but just parts of the photo is when your can direct the audiences attention in the photo.  There is more than just to lighting parts of the photo, you can ratio the light throughout the photo and have some parts not totally black, but slightly darker than the subject.  This way you still see those other aspects of the scene, but they are secondary to the main subject. It is like have two or three sentences in a paragraph and you direct the reader to who the main subject is and the the supporting roles.

Here the the light powered down for the white background for figure 11. (Figure 13)

Just changed the red gel to blue and left everything the same as in figure 11. (Figure 14)

You can see all I changed is the gel to blue from red to get figure 14. (Figure 15)

Here you can see I have the power way up, actually 2 stops greater than the subject. This is for figure 5 photo. (Figure 16)

A tip to make your gels last longer. Cut them to the size you use for your strobes and then take gaffers tape and wrap the edges. When you use them on the lights be sure after checking them with the modeling light to turn the modeling light off.  They will last longer and not melt or catch fire. (Figure 17)

Some of my gels I have labeled.  Here I have the gel on left labeled 3200 Kelvin and 81B. This lets me know I can put this over a strobe to match incandescent light bulbs. The one on the right is 30G letting me know for many fluorescent lights I can balance my strobes to color match the florescent.  (Figure 18)