ON THE COVER

BEHIND the scenes

with Chris Bersbach

We shot the cover image for this issue on a roll of white seamless paper, which is our go-to choice for a portrait that has clean space for our masthead and other copy and still looks great on the cover. I use seamless paper all the time because it’s light and affordable, but I’ve also been experimenting with other options for small, portable studio-like environments. This time, in addition to white paper, I set up my 4-foot plywood background in the wooded area by the creek near Terri’s studio for some additional images that would provide a nice contrast to our cover image. I wanted an image that would put a “studio” look into a context where you wouldn’t usually expect to see that kind of polished shot, so we hung the square background on a couple light stands and put a small flash behind Terri to pop a little light onto the background. I used a second light on Terri’s face, just like we might do in a studio, and then worked with her to ham it up for the camera.