Setting Up an At Home Studio

This weekend I learned:

Some people should come visit a lot more often.  Uncle George (Tom’s brother) came to visit on his way to Wyoming. He had never met Evie before and it had been over a year since he saw Rett.  He came through the door and Rett ran up to him and gave him a hug.  That boy has great judge of character skills

 

Its not everyday you can go play outside with no jacket on with snow on the ground. We had temperatures in the near 60’s and the snow was still sticking around but barely.

 

Ok onto setting up your home studio.  I think people sometimes see my photos and think I have some awesome set up with a room that’s painted in some funky artsy color with lots of my photos on the walls and lots of expensive equipment. Um. Right.  That’s just my dream world. I would LOVE to have a devoted CLOSED off space where I could do my photos but I have a loft upstairs. 

When I first bought my camera (2 years ago in 3 days!!!) I did lots of mock sessions with Rett using sheets on the wall.  I then moved on to using paper meant for bulletin boards that I borrowed from my school.  And finally I did a session for a daycare and actually bought some real paper and my seamless stand.  So here is what my ‘studio’ looks like.

 

Ok so here is my studio. I have a wide angle lens (thankfully) so I can get all this in.  What you are looking at here is, a white roll of Savage Seamless permanently mounted on the wall.  A transportable seamless stand with some chestnut Savage paper on it. There’s a bamboo carpet saver office rug that I bought off ebay and under that is a piece of shower board from Lowe’s.  Real ritzy right?

 

When I first set up my studio I bought a big roll of savage white. We went to Lowe’s and bought a curtain rod set, mounted it on the wall and then hung my white paper up.  I use clamps to keep it from unrolling.  I also have a piece of black muslin that I can clip up there to change it from black. I figure black and white should be accessible at all times easily.

The day care session really moved me forward on getting some decent looking studio stuff. I ordered this rug off ebay for about $50.  Bought the wall molding from Lowe’s for about $3, the stand was more expensive, I think around $125 and one roll of smaller seamless in a blue shade, I want to say ocean?

This is one of the photos I did for that session.

I wish I would have taken a photo of the windows I’m working with upstairs but oh well.  I do all natural lighting and I fill with my speedlite.  I use my reflector to bounce the light back onto my studio because the light angles over to the right side as you can see by the sunburst there.  This room works much better in the morning then in the afternoon. 

 

So here is my studio buy list:

 

 

I also own these colors of seamless:

 

I prefer to buy my colored seamless in the 53” because I can’t permanently mount all of them which means I am switching them out constantly.  This size is still pretty large for a shortie like me but I can manage by myself.  They also fit in the car more nicely then the huge white that I own.  It is difficult to photograph children because you are constantly running out of paper but most people who have an at home studio just don’t have the space to devote to all that paper. 

I hope you got some ideas on setting up your own at home studio! There is a bit of a cost to start out but when you think of the money you are saving from not buying your photos elsewhere, you recoup your cost pretty quickly.