Bedroom "Studios" ?

As you know I have a digital camera and a webcam now. I guess you could say I have a bedroom, but right now I live in a house that was never finished, so it's more like a "storage room with bed." The floor is concrete, the walls are some horrible shade of turqoise, no curtains, etc.

Here are the questions. What does it take to make a decent amateur studio in a small really empty room? I'm on an extremely limited budget, but I want to be able to take decent photo sets that don't have people trying to figure out what the hell is in the background. I am still learning a lot about lighting and contrast, my camera seems to need a huge amount of light.

What do you think about themed outside photosets? Stuff like hikes in the woods, skinny dipping, jerking off on railroad tracks, etc. There are a ton of wierd secluded "sets" around here, but I have no experience and I definately always question my personal tastes. I'm just wanting to be able to come up with a variety of content.

Its been awhile since I had my photography studio, but I doubt that the basics have really changed all that much, so here's a few things I'd suggest getting or checking into.

1. as much as you can, paint that room white, or off white... all of it, floor to ceiling. Not a hi gloss -- more semi-matt. This will help the lighting problem and save you some bucks by being able to use soft boxes and bounce umbrella units and bounce lighting in general.

2. to have a couple of backgrounds the cheap way (and I've done it and it works) ... rig up a couple of clotheslines using thick braided wire, as high up as you can get them, and still allow room to pull across material backgrounds. Make these wires as tight as you can.

Buy both white and black material at a fabric shop ... enough that you can go floor to ceiling and the full width of your available wall space on the one wall in each color .. and basically make big shower curtains out of each color ... you can even use those handy clip on metal shower curtain hooks to hang them from your wire clotheslines. The material should be a rather dense weave, but you can certainly use cotton blends, all cotton would be too heavy physically as well as not hang/drape nicely. You can also to this to 2 or 3 walls if you anticipate "corner" decor/shots.

3. check into a professional seamless background as well.... something thats got the grey/blues cloudy soft look. If poor - I've bought plastic fabric and made my own using acrylics and sponges. Just staple it onto a large wooden rod and rig it up AGAINST the wall with drop in cup hooks like they use for closet poles. Your material backgrounds should hang to the front of the painted one.

4. Lights can be a simple 2 - 3 light studio system, with stands, and as I mentioned above, employ either soft boxes or umbrellas. A back light can be handled with a simple shoe mount flash on a short stand that has a remote sensor attached.

5. While digital cameras are supposed to "read" your light automatically, I'm of the old school ... get and learn to use a hand held light meter!

For more help, you can check these out:
Digital studio on a budget
Lighting Systems

As to Location photography .......YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so sick of pics that are couples on couches, floors and beds ... get them outdoors and use those weird and "different" areas near you! And one quick note about outdoor pics ... try to do them on an overcast day, or in a way that keeps them out of direct, high in the sky sunlight to avoid unsightly shadows. And use fill flash!

Good luck!

Thank you Bec, that was all awesome advice. I'm doing almost everything you suggested. material is really cheap too, i found almost every color you could want for $1 a yard.

You're welcome -- share a pic or 2 from the new studio when you get going.

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Originally posted by Bec
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As to Location photography .......YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so sick of pics that are couples on couches, floors and beds ... get them outdoors and use those weird and "different" areas near you! And one quick note about outdoor pics ... try to do them on an overcast day, or in a way that keeps them out of direct, high in the sky sunlight to avoid unsightly shadows. And use fill flash!

Good luck!

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Hey Jay,

I think BEC is absolutely right about the locations, and I think a lot of people "get off" on outdoor scenes.

If you need a P.A.(production asst.), let me know, the experience would be enough compensation:thumbsup:

i'm sick of shoots of guys jacking off in the woods. if you go to ounique, you'll find zillions of them. trees and all the green make the size of the digital pics much larger, costing more in bandwidth and slowing loading time. also there are a lot more shadows on the model in shoots done in the woods, so the pics are not as useful.

if you can find BIG pieces of felt, it makes a great backdrop for a studio.

also you can go buy a couch at goodwill, and who knows what other stuff you can find there to create your studio. plus think of the fun you'll have while looking!

you might try a few pawn shops to get your studio lighting. or maybe some place like http://www.craigslist.org/

Here's something from my film school days that I've always found useful...

Regardless of whether you're shooting in studio or on location, have a light fill or light bounce board.

They're cheap -- I've made them out of cardboard and white paper before and that's worked nicely in a pinch.

The idea is that you have a white foam board or similar material that you can position and use to soften harsh light, fill in shadows, or direct soft light to the model.

This eliminates a lot of bad lighting problems.

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Originally posted by robin
Here's something from my film school days that I've always found useful...

Regardless of whether you're shooting in studio or on location, have a light fill or light bounce board.

They're cheap -- I've made them out of cardboard and white paper before and that's worked nicely in a pinch.

The idea is that you have a white foam board or similar material that you can position and use to soften harsh light, fill in shadows, or direct soft light to the model.

This eliminates a lot of bad lighting problems.

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Absolutely a good tip -- and depending on the board color - they can be used to add a touch of color -- I've used foil gold ones for instance when doing floral closeups ... gives a nice golden glow in the fill light.

When I had my old webcam site it was just me, my webcam, and a lamp so the picture quality left a lot to be desired, not to mention the tiny 320x240 resolution of the stills. Yet I still managed to make enough $ to live better than I have before or since. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that money had nothing to do with me making the site, it was a fun hobby and it showed.

Now that I am taking the time to try to have quality content and a good site, it's showing me how much I got away with doing and not doing last time. Hopefully the knowledge will lead to a much improved site with even more traffic. I had about 1 million per month last time, so that is the goal I'm setting this time too.

Thanks everyone for the excellent advice, it has all influenced how I am going about taking pictures now. I'll be doing a lot of outside shoots on overcast days with enough zoom to avoid all those huge green tree shots hehe, and my inside studio now has plenty of lighting.

Now I just have to figure out how to make myself look good on camera. I'm scrawny, white, hairy...kind of scary. Do they sell makeup that you can use to make your muscles look bigger in pictures or something? lol j/k I really wanted to put my weight bench in my room and have a workout cam, but there isn't room.

So do any of you have any advice on how to make "models" look better during photo shoots? Keep in mind i'm really hairy.

Try freecycle.org if you're looking for free stuff. They're great lists, people are always giving away all sorts of crazy stuff.

I've heard people are furnishing their entire homes via freecycle. :)

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Originally posted by DigitalJay
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Now I just have to figure out how to make myself look good on camera. I'm scrawny, white, hairy...kind of scary. Do they sell makeup that you can use to make your muscles look bigger in pictures or something? lol j/k I really wanted to put my weight bench in my room and have a workout cam, but there isn't room.

So do any of you have any advice on how to make "models" look better during photo shoots? Keep in mind i'm really hairy.

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Jay,

I can't speak to shooting models, but I can tell you as a hirsute kinda guy, a razor comes in handy-how about a buzz cam? Lasers are great for a more permanent solution and falling between the two, we have waxing.

Just a heads up on another free course being offered thru Cnet:

ENROLL today in CNET's "Beyond Point & Shoot: Digital Photography
Techniques" online class to learn:

- Image size and compression
- Special shooting modes and white balance
- Composition and timing
- Editing photo on your computer
- Sharing images: printing them or burning them to CDs

Class starts Sept.16




Click here to enroll and more info