To hate white professional photo backdrops

[MrsMaryMystery]

Hey oh! PND and anxiety sufferer here and I can't sleep. So I'm lying here, tired and hungry and thinking about portraiture. 🤣

I feel I must have missed the memo. To me photos in front of a bright white background are odd, like I should be wearing a snowsuit or something.
I'm not sure why it's so popular. It seems to be so draining against most skin tones, or at least, other colours would look better?

Clearly it's different tastes for different people... my old prom pic is no better as it's on a black background. I seem to melt into it... spooky!

No idea why I'm thinking about that at this hour. I'm definitely bu in that respect.

Horrendous but I dislike most studio photography. The worst for me is when the background isn't large enough and grown men are sitting on the floor. I'm haunted by a family photo where the grandfather was on the ground in his bare feet.
I'm a photographer and always encourage outdoor photography.

White background and why always bare feet? Ewww.

I'm not keen on posed shots with rictus grins, studio or not. Something uncanny about them.

No one looks like themselves in them, so why you'd want a picture stuck up on the wall of some fake image of you in some fake setting I don't know.

I much prefer natural shots of people, as PP said, outdoors.

(special shout out to newborn shots that as far as I'm concerned all take the most generic looking images of what appears to be exactly the same baby in exactly the same poses and weird accessories - they look like someone forgot to take the sample photo out of the frame)

The newborn ones where they are half naked folded in half into a flowerpot or something make me wince.
There used to be a famous photographer who specialised in it.

When DS1 was little, he saw a 'white background' family photo on a friend's wall and asked "How did you all get into that empty place?" 😂

I know a lady who has a home studio and specialises in ‘creative newborn shoots’.

There’s one where the baby had cabbage leaves on its head. One where it’s asleep in a large shoe prop. One where it’s naked in a wheelbarrow. Or put in a big basket of fruit.

I do like looking at them, they make me laugh. She does those awful baby’s first birthday cake smashes too.

Always, always on a white background.

They are good because you concentrate on the people in the image - not the background. Pulse, they don't date. Can't imagine a big flowery wallpaper in the background or some fake foliage.

I'm not keen on posed shots with rictus grins, studio or not. Something uncanny about them.

*No one looks like themselves in them, so why you'd want a picture stuck up on the wall of some fake image of you in some fake setting I don't know.
I'm not keen on posed shots with rictus grins, studio or not. Something uncanny about them.

No one looks like themselves in them, so why you'd want a picture stuck up on the wall of some fake image of you in some fake setting I don't know.*

I agree. A long time ago in my area a man killed his wife and kids as they slept and hanged himself. The family studio portrait they’d just had done was published in the papers. It came out he was about to go bankrupt and the wife was having an affair and about to leave. But they looked like a normal family. Knowing that the photo was just chilling.

Sorry bold and paste failure.

@SmidgenofaPigeon

I know a lady who has a home studio and specialises in ‘creative newborn shoots’.

There’s one where the baby had cabbage leaves on its head. One where it’s asleep in a large shoe prop. One where it’s naked in a wheelbarrow. Or put in a big basket of fruit.

I do like looking at them, they make me laugh. She does those awful baby’s first birthday cake smashes too.

Always, always on a white background.

The babies always seem to be asleep in the flowerpot/basket/shoe with their chin in their hands. It just looks awkward.

@StoneofDestiny

They are good because you concentrate on the people in the image - not the background. Pulse, they don't date. Can't imagine a big flowery wallpaper in the background or some fake foliage.

They don’t not date just because of a neutral background. Clothes and hairstyles date.

@StoneofDestiny

They are good because you concentrate on the people in the image - not the background. Pulse, they don't date. Can't imagine a big flowery wallpaper in the background or some fake foliage.

I think they look really, really dated. They were very popular during a particular period of time and are falling out of fashion (thankfully). They look quite harsh compared to some of the more natural and less staged style of photography I’ve started seeing recently.

Yep I agree they are starting to look dated now.
The bare feet !! 🤢
I do enjoy a chuckle at the ridiculous newborn sessions though - cute and awful at the same time 😂

Weird thing to be bothered by. I love our professional photo-shoot photos. Some of them have my DDad in, who developed dementia and died not long after so they’re a great memory of him. We all wore neutral clothes in them, they haven’t dated at all and we all looked great back then!

Goodness me I thought I was going to get roasted. So glad other people also don't see the appeal!

I have newborn shots but they are of me and DH holding the baby and smiling infront of a mid-dark background. No cabbages in sight :-D

Totally agree it's the clothes and hair (AND THE GLASSES) that date photos most. The mid-1980s school photos of me and my sister in front of some swirly brown backdrop still look nice.

Not sure what time I fell asleep last night but I woke up again at 5, and DS2 was in bed next to me. And I have no recollection of putting him there. Very weird.

Studio photos like this are absolutely cringe, and absolutely lol at people saying they don’t date. They absolutely do!

The only time this is ever acceptable is at a graduation but the background tends to be a more muted shade (like blue or something). And even then they obviously date due to clothes and hair!

It’s all a matter of taste. Some people love high key white backdrop. Not my thing personally, much rather have nicely done photos outdoors.

@StoneofDestiny

They are good because you concentrate on the people in the image - not the background. Pulse, they don't date. Can't imagine a big flowery wallpaper in the background or some fake foliage.

What's the problem with it dating? I thought that was the point of a memory. Old photos are great and being able to date it is surely part of the point?

@Sparklingbrook

The newborn ones where they are half naked folded in half into a flowerpot or something make me wince. There used to be a famous photographer who specialised in it.

I’m so glad you’ve said this. I thought it was just who hated them. They make me cringe whenever I see them. I also really dislike modern school class photos with the white background and the kids photographed separately in little groups and then placed together afterwards. What was wrong with the old class photos with the kids all standing on benches, tallest at the back smallest at front and teacher at the side taken in the hall or on the playground? They were the norm for decades and now we get these wanky photos in white backgrounds that look so unnatural.

@Cactus1982 my two are 18 and 21 now but school photos at first School got seriously odd by Year 4. Uniform and bare feet sat on a sheepskin rug? All the class but in weird poses?
I love the class photos on the benches, and the whole school ones with the teachers each side.

I also will never forget how much those photos cost and however awful they were feeling you had to buy them.

We got gifted a shoot for a photography company who are famous for a talking you in to spending lots of money on massive white background photos. They photoshopped my DH so his face looks as smooth as a babies bum and seemed to have completely taken the character from my DS’s face. We got away with paying £200 for 3 small framed photos. I’m not a fan of them at all as I don’t think they reflect reality. Much prefer natural shots in nature.

I loathe the while background, informal clumps of kids drooping around too.

The one from DS's nursery has always bugged me. I can see that it's logistically easier to photograph and photoshop a line of 4 year olds this way, but DS1 was small for his age, and another boy was at least a head taller, but the scaling is wrong so that they appear to be the same size, but their proportions are off!
6 years later, they are still in the same cohort so I am frequently reminded of this crime against perspective