If I want to take dramatic portraits on a black backdrop (without even needing a single light), a garage is your new go to spot. This is the simplest (and most makeshift looking) setup that I use. As you can see in the image above, all I am using is a piece of black foam core, folded into a “v,” set inside a garage on a sunny day.
While you can accomplish this setup on overcast days, having a sunny day helps to increase the brightness of everything outside the garage, thus increasing the catch light in the model’s eyes. The sunny daylight scene outside the garage essentially acts as a giant reflector, which hold under the subject’s chin to soften shadows.
