Tools of the Trade
Day Twenty-Two: Simple Photo Studio
A few years ago, I spent each day in January writing about a different tool I use in my maskmaking. As I am currently redesigning my entire website in the new year, I thought it might be nice to revisit this project. Each day in January 2021, I’ll share a different item that I use in my studio. I hope some of these can help other people who are interested in making wrestling masks.
Back in the day when I wanted to photograph my masks, I had one of those trifold foamcore boards like kids would do science fair projects on, and I’d stick that on a table as a backdrop for the photos. It worked, but created some bad shadows and I thought I could do better. I saw a tutorial on YouTube that suggested using a piece of white poster board, curved so that it would help eliminate hard shadows. I thought about that, and then came up with the idea of using a common roller blind instead of a piece of poster board. It would naturally drape into a curve, and it’s self-storing.
The roller blind is attached to my built in shelves behind my cutting table. When I need to take pictures, I just pull out the blind and clamp the end to the edge of the table with some simple spring clamps. Then I have a few very bright LED desk lamps which I bought at the dollar store (yes, these were a dollar apiece, and they are EXCELLENT lamps!). I put white grocery bags over the lamps to act as a light diffuser; looks ghetto but works great. One lights the backdrop while the other two light the mask.
Here’s what the roller blind looks like without all the paraphernalia. It gives a nice, even white background, and I just pull it out far enough so that it naturally creates that gentle curve that makes the photographs look a lot more professional.
Here’s what the area looks like when the blind is rolled back up—it basically disappears! The lights go into a plastic milk crate which slides underneath my spare sewing machine table. Basically, the whole system is a photo studio that sets up in minutes and takes up practically no space when you don’t need it—win/win!