Building another photo studio.
The tabletop photo studio I built last year for Woolley is great. However, I knew we also needed a bigger space for models and products like bikes and tents. Last week, I finished up building out another space in our garage. It's actually really sweet.
What kicked it into gear were a couple of things:
- Watching the Platon documentary (again) on Netflix (it's incredible if you have forty-three minutes)
- A photo on Instagram of a guy sitting on an apple box (a staple of every photo studio)
So I got to work.
Step one: rather than buying an apple box, I built one with scrap plywood left over from our van conversion.
It took a weekend. When it came time to cut the handles, I made a jig for my router. With a pattern bit, now I can make lots of apple boxes. All told, it was really easy. The coolest part? I was able to brand it with our wood burner.
Boom.
The box inspiration was from that Platon film. The next step of the studio build came from that photo on the Gram.
Step two: give the garage floor a reflective, wet look.
We've had a couple of five-gallon drums of concrete sealers the previous owners left us, along with an 18" paint roller frame and heavy-duty tray to apply it. So I cleaned the floor before cracking open one of the drums.
That was easy. Worth noting: it made it nearly unbearable to live in our house for a few days as the fumes slowly wore off. Noted for when I do the other side of the garage…
Step 3: install a backdrop hanging system.
Like what I did in our smaller studio, I went with steel pipe. The cool part of using our garage is it has, well, two huge garage doors. In other words, natural light. So I designed a set of pipe brackets at right angles to each other. One perpendicular to the garage door opening (for natural side-lighting) and another deeper set further back and parallel to the door.
From those I can now hang three different backdrops lit with natural light or strobes. It's a very cool - and very flexible - set. Seen in the photo below, near the garage door opener motor, I also mounted a 12" pipe to the ceiling on which to mount a camera facing down at the floor for laydown photos.
With an apple box, a shiny floor, and a backdrop I just needed something (or preferably, someone) to photograph.
Enter: my wife.
She spent years as a model for REI and apparently, at least for her, it's like riding a bike. She's a natural. In maybe twenty minutes, I got dozens of keepers.
Then, some fun ones and BTS…
Technical note: photos were taken with an old Canon 1Ds MkII and a slightly-newer Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 II
I haven't waxed as poetically over my circa 2004 Canon 1Ds MkII as I have my (similarly circa 2005) original Canon 5D. But that beast paired with a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 II (circa 2010) is legendary. The files are absolutely stunning and it's a joy to work with in the studio.
Some day I'll have to write more about it…
