Feathers on white, help.

[Featherfolio]

Starling-Poster-WEB.jpg

• Featherfolio
• 1 May 2020
• feathers

composite of many individual African starling feathers borrowed from the American Museum of...

A hospital wants three five foot prints each with a composition of many individual photos of feathers on white backgrounds. Black backgrounds are easy as per my poster shown here. White tends to blow out the fine downy parts of the feathers. Any help?
Some possible avenues toward a solution:

1. Lighting. I have tried a bunch of things but the downy parts get blown out.
2. Photoshop. I cannot get the downy parts to layer without including background color.
3. An off white or light grey background. These colors will have to be exactly even and the same for each photo since they will be composited. Is this possible?

What do you think?

Thanks