I promised you last week that I’d show you how I have things set up for my photos now.  I’m lucky enough to have recently gained a spare room, albeit at 8ft x 14ft, it’s not a particularly large room!  I had always intended to paint it white so that I could use it for neutral photo backgrounds, but after I went on the Product Photography Course with Welshot Imaging, run by my friends Lee and Eifion, I came home with a renewed sense of purpose and an idea how I could achieve what I wanted in terms of product photography.

I’ll start by giving you a quick tour of the room, then take you through each area:

This is looking from the door down the left hand side of the room – please note I have a very wide angled lens that allows me to get this shot, you wouldn’t be able to see it all with a lens starting around the 17/18mm mark.

And now from the left hand side looking down the right.  The lampshade is being replaced just as soon as I put the kit together!  As you can see, the storage units here are nothing to do with photography, and everything to do with needing somewhere better for my bag and clothing fabrics, plus other random things that needed a home!  On top there’s Christmas decorations, hangers for holding up quilts in photo shoots, bubble wrap and related items to stuff bags with to make them look nice and full when being photgraphed, and a couple of storage things from B&Q with buttons and eyelets and things from my scrapbooking days.  The further away unit has all my craft and photography books, plus a few travel ones, and all my printed off maps and walking routes of areas I love to visit.

So how do I use all of this?  Well lets see.

This first area is for taking photos of larger things.  I have a relatively large floor to ceiling space here, and at the very top of the wall I’ve installed a cheap extending curtain pole from B&Q which I can use to hang quilts from.  In the foreground you can see Diana on the left, who can model clothing, in the centre are my studio lights, and on the right a pile of assembled photo props, including a trunk, wicker basket, old fashioned phone, wee oil lamp, a mystery washday thing I picked up in a charity shop, and on the floor, in her case, is Fiona.  I also have a couple of chairs, but they’re being painted at the moment.  Also, behind the quilt top are some almost invisible command strips for holding up hook panels for hanging bag shots.

Now with this area, it’s miles from the window, and really, with all the other stuff in between too, it needs studio lights of some sort.  I was lucky enough to be given some money by my gran for Christmas, so I invested in some Bowens Gemini lights with a remote trigger (which means I can move around without being tied by a wire to the light units)  Don’t faint if you look up the price for them, there are other options which I’ll discuss later on.

This is actually, technically, my guest room, so I have a day bed in here.  Above it you can see my Stitch Tease Quilt, hung from another curtain pole, but this one is threaded through the hanging sleeve.  The day bed itself can be used for cushions or draped quilts as required.  Really though, it’s so that my guests have somewhere to sleep!

Now this slightly inauspicious looking setup is actually my most frequently used area.  This is where I now take my progress shots for patterns/tutorials, show off small finished items, and I can also hang smaller bags from command strips here too.  The step stool lets me stand above to get good, clear shots downwards onto what I’m trying to demonstrate.  This leads to less distortion in perspective than standing at floor level pointing down at an angle.  You can also see a couple of small daylight lamps, and a couple of pieces of foam core board which I use for my backdrop.  On the floor is my wee camera bag with lenses and flash guns and things in it.

One thing you might have noticed is that the window has no covering (I’m actually working on that to put a Roman Blind in there), but even without one you can already see darker spots and shadows from the window supplied light.  Today was relatively okay weatherwise – not bright sunshine, but not raining either, however I can assure you that on a rainy day this spot does not get huge amounts of light!

So what would be the best thing for you to get…

To answer that question, there’s a few things that you need to consider (my answers come first):

• Do you have access to somewhere that you can easily take full sized photos – eg quilts etc, as well as having a suitable climate and ability to get outside during daylight hours?  

1. I have absolutely no outside options for anything other than quilts – I have no garden, it rains here about 50% of the time (meaning that if it isn’t raining, it’s a good chance things are damp), and I have a full time job that restricts my ability to get out during daylight hours for a large chunk of the year, especially when we’re down to the 5 hours daylight midwinter days.  My only outside option for quilts is a multi storey carpark near my office, which I can theoretically nip out to at lunchtime, if the weather’s behaving (it rained every day from late November until about a week ago here)
2. If you answered no to the above, can you at least claim a patch of wall space the width of a quilt, where you can install some kind of hanging mechanism high above?  This may require you to move a little furniture, or use a little ingenuity, but if you can, then you could consider getting some studio lights – I’ll go into more detail on them below.

• Do you need to take photos of smaller items, such as pouches, quilt blocks or the making of things in progress?