When I began thinking about making this site, one of the first decisions I needed to make was deciding how I wanted to show my flies. What size, what proportions and what color background. A bright medium blue is by far the most commonly used color for the web and print. It shows off flies well and is pleasing to the eye. But I just didn’t want to be the same. So what to do?
I grabbed a fly, in this case my favorite Rust Stim. Then using a pack of colored paper, I took a bunch of pictures of that fly in the same lighting. I just replaced the paper behind the fly. From these pictures I narrowed it down to 4 or 5 colors. I showed these pictures to several people to get their input. I decided to go with the dark gray. I’ve used it until the last post, where I used a light, neutral gray for the Mahogany Dun background.
Here is a gallery of the original pictures. What do you think of the colors? Which would you choose for your pictures?
(You can click to enlarge the photos for a better look at the contrast of the fly against the colored paper.)
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I use fluorescent lights over my tying bench and if I use a light colored background while taking pictures my digital camera picks up waves. So I am stuck using a blue background. Nice colors you have, I am sure you could use them all depending on the color of the fly.
I’ve never had waves. Is your background plain, matte finish paper? You could also try moving it further away from the fly. The more out of focus it is, the less likely you might be to get a moire effect. Thanks for checking out my site.