What do you do if you need to take a headshot on location in a room full of clutter? If you're lucky, you'll have a large, plain white wall to shoot against. More often than not, however, you won't.

The Westcott Illuminator background is the answer.  It's light, portable, and two sided - white / black.  With this portable background, you can create studio-quality headshots at practically any location.

The background folds into a disk 28" in diameter:

It comes in several sizes. The model I have is 6' x 5'.  Not enough for a full body, but good for a headshot or head & torso.

I love the white side for headshots. When you place your subject 3' in front of the background, it turns it into a nice medium grey.  Of course, you could light the background if you wanted a high key portrait.

The black side also makes a great background. This was shot with all natural light, just a sheer white shade pulled down over the window which diffused the sunlight, turning the window into a natural softbox.

As I've said before - simple, relatively inexpensive items like this Westcott background ($176 at Adorama) or Alien Bee monolights will make a MUCH bigger difference to your images than buying an $8,000 1DsMkIII.  The first portrait (of my little girl Annika) was taken with a 30D and 50mm f1.4 lens. The second with a 20D and 50mm f1.4 lens.  Not expensive gear by any means.  If I shot them with a 1DsMkIII + 50mm f1.2L combo ($9,500) but WITHOUT the background, the images would not be nearly as good.  Good technique combined with just the right gear will get you the results you want.