So - I am at the beginning of a journey which is going to make me into a successful photographer – or at least my promise to you my reader is that I am going to do everything I can think of to try.


Monday 21 March 2011

Setting up the Studio - Which Photographic Background?

Flooring

My bedroom is 3m x 3.9m and has a carpet, which won’t work with a paper background.

WHICH PHOTOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND?

Paper Backgrounds

I love these because they don’t crease and they are SO much easier than cloth to use if you want an even background. I’ve wasted hours in the past photo-shopping out folds and creases in cloth.

Vinyl Backgrounds

I went to a vinyl shop. Cheap vinyl is only about £5 per meter. Apparently you can paint the back of it and it works as well as the expensive stuff. It’s very heavy, though. Would work out cheaper than paper because it doesn’t tear and you can wipe it clean and even repaint it in different colours apparently. It isn’t thick enough to work on the carpet unless I got some industrial quality stuff which might be stiff enough. However, this costs £20 per meter and is even heavier still. I couldn’t possibly lift it myself onto a background support.

Cloth backgrounds

You can get some interesting effects on these. I saw something on YouTube about using gels on them, which looks really good. They would work fine on the carpet, and would be more comfortable to kneel and sit on than a hard floor. MAJOR disadvantage is creasing and folds, especially on the floor. These often obscure parts of feet. With small children I’ve never managed to keep them smooth then you end up having to crop to head and upper body. Lots of the most relaxed family poses involve sitting on the floor. I could try taping the background the floor?

CONCLUSION

I need to be able to photograph whole families.
My most successful family poses involve people sitting on the floor
Therefore I need to have a paper or vinyl backdrop
The vinyl is too heavy, and I want to be able to swap backgrounds mid shoot
Therefore I need to create a hard floor which will work with paper.


I’m going to buy some plywood to put over the carpet and see if that would work with paper.

1 comment:

  1. This is really interesting and useful. It's great to look at all the different options. I liked the souind of the paintability of the vinyl but paper is lighter so...

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