This weekend’s project was a backdrop for Ardley Bridge. I used two 4x8 foot sheets of 1/8” thick fiberboard (masonite?) from the local DIY store. The stuff is like pegboard without the holes and is fairly flexible- a prerequisite since it had to bend to follow the slope of my workshop roof. I had the DIY staff cut the sheets down to 30”- all I had to do when I got it home was trim one sheet down lengthwise to get the required 16’ long backdrop. The joint between the two halves isn’t perfect, even though it was putted, but I’ll be photo shopping out imperfections anyway, so what’s another small crack?
The idea was to produce something that was basically white, implied sky when you were in the workshop, and looked the part in photos. I wanted the backdrop to fade to white at the horizon so blue was only applied to the upper half. I used a roller and some flat white house paint to get to a white starting point. Two cans of spray paint (blue and white) were then used to tweak the colors. I used the blue to apply the wispy sky poking through the overcast and ultra flat white to fix the blue when it didn’t work out the way I intended. A quick job that I believe looks the part.
I white balanced the camera for the shop fluorescents for these photos, but the lighting was less than perfect. I much prefer to shoot under incandescent lighting, I’ll have to decide on a balance of lights for viewing and what I am going to use for photography. Installing lights for Ardley Bridge is going to be next week’s chore…
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