Senior Pictures -- Blue background help

[gomezef]

Hello all,

I am doing some senior pictures for a friend in exchange for a service of theirs. When the guy contacted me, he told me that the school required the formal picture that is submitted have a blue background. Now, I am an amateur wedding photographer who doesn't really carry around seamless blue backgrounds, and was mostly going to do the shots outside. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas:

Blurring a blue background.

White background with photoshop.

Try to makeshift blue gel spot lights.

Photoshop.

Prayer.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Like I said, I'm going to try to do most of the shooting outside, and I don't really have an arsenal of lights at my disposal. Thank you for all your help!!

[sarahgirl777]

How funny, I just posed about using gel's on a black background to make it blue. You can see my post here, it might give you some ideas.

Good luck!

Oh another idea, scout out around town for any buildings with blue walls/ paint. I now have a nice green wall and blue wall in town I use a lot too.

[archersdad]

You could also just go buya blue sheet. It shouldn't cost you more than $10.

[AnneWynne]

[QUOTE=gomezef;620483]Hello all,

I am doing some senior pictures for a friend in exchange for a service of theirs. When the guy contacted me, he told me that the school required the formal picture that is submitted have a blue background.
QUOTE]

Make sure you ask what color blue is required...light blue, royal blue, powder blue, lilac blue, Carolina blue, navy blue, marine blue.......

[rpcrowe]

Get a fleece or foam blanket from Walmart in a light blue. They are inexpensive, a king-size is plenty big enough and they don't produce hotspots. The foam type blankets are also extremely resistant to wrinkles.

If you are using a background light, you can vary the background and give it a mottled appearance by placing a home-made gobo in front of it. A gobo is simply a piece of material through which light is projected (with the flash in your case) to give an uneven lighting effect! The gobo can be made from some crinkly celophane or plastic material or you can actually cut one out of a harder plastic material.

The color intensity of the blanket will depend on your lighting.

Here is a more succinct definition of a gobo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobo_(lighting)