Let’s face it: the thought of taking an existing space and converting it into a photography studio can be daunting to say the least! As a newborn photographer, a studio is an absolute necessity to help control an environment that is comfortable to the sensitive babies, while also being functional to what you’re trying to accomplish – taking beautiful photos! However, creating the studio without spending a fortune led me on a path that had very little resources to reference, so I had to blaze my own trail, getting creative along the way!
Here’s my precious little family :) Don’t ask me how I got both dogs to behave for this shot!
A Little Background:
Hi! I’m Elizabeth, owner of Elizabeth Moore Photography (check out my Facebook page) based out of Lancaster, PA! If you’re new to this blog, I welcome you to my website, and I hope you stay a while and check out some of my work! I married my wonderful husband in 2013 and had to uproot, re-locate, and re-brand my photography business, which had already been established for several years. As many photographers who have gone through this know, it can be a business killer, but it doesn’t have to be! To be with my hubby, the change was all worth it – but I definitely had to rely on my faith in God that my business would work out. So began my journey of finding myself, and creating a studio space without breaking the bank.
The Studio:
Moving to a new area outside of my old “stomping grouds” was incredibly tough. I’d totally be lying to you guys if I said it was a smooth transition. Imagine this – you client base suddenly and mostly evaporates into thin air. What do you do? How do you pull yourself up by your bootstraps and start over? Those questions mulled over in my mind daily, and I knew I had to start somewhere.
One thing I knew was that I wanted to specialize my business toward newborn photography. After all, who wouldn’t want to cuddle with a precious little miracle every day!? If you’re familiar with newborn photography, then you know it can be difficult to darn-near impossible to photograph newborns without having a controlled environment. The lighting has to be strictly regulated, the temperature has to be JUST right, and you need to have the flexibility to change things in and out very quickly, as sometimes the baby will only accept the perfect pose for seconds before getting fussy. I’d always wanted my very own studio space, but everything I’d found on Pinterest was way too expensive, or would require a massive overhaul of the already-limited space I had. However, one amazing creative and DIY moment led to another once I started working on converting a spare bedroom into my studio. As a newly married photograpreneur (yes – I just did that), money was tight, so everything purchased had to go a LONG way!
The spare room started as a pretty standard and bland 10 x 12 space – white walls, two windows, and carpet (which led to a problem by itself – more on the carpet later). My studio had to have different flooring choices, numerous backdrops that were able to be quickly and easily changed out, and the studio had to be able to accommodate a lighting system. How the HECK am I going to do all of this in 120 sq. feet!?
Cue my husband, blessed with an engineer/problem-solving brain, who figured out inexpensive work-around tactics that actually work BETTER than the expensive stuff, and cost a whole lot less!
Lighting:
Let’s start here as this will probably be the most expensive single purchase in your studio. I knew I needed at least three lights to cover all shadows: an overhead, and two fill lights on 45-degree angles. There are a million options out there for this kind of need! Not to worry – I’ve tried and tested about a half dozen of them until I found the one that blended quality with value the best: The CowboyStudio 2275 Watt Lighting Kit. *Full disclaimer: I do not work for or get endorsed by CowboyStudio in any way. These thoughts are purely my own!*
If you’re looking for a lighting kit that that can be transported all over God’s creation, then this kit is probably NOT for you (I haven’t had any issues in my studio with the quality and build of the lighting kit, but the kit may not survive being moved around constantly) and you should probably invest in a rugged solution, but for a permanent studio these are perfect! The option to turn on each individual bulb on the fill lights is awesome, and gives you customizable light for your situation!
Here’s two hacks: 1) For the overhead light, you need counter-weight to go in the bags. Use 4 cans of the on-sale soup from the grocery store…cheap and heavy. 2) Go purchase fluorescent bulbs with color temperatures between 3500-5000k for that natural “soft daylight” look. The 5500k bulbs the kit comes with put out too sterile of light for me, but everyone is different!
Lighting Cost:
- Lighting Kit — $
230.00(as of article publishing, this kit is on sale right now on Amazon – link above – for 181.99 with FREE shipping!) - Soup Cans Counterweights – 4 for $1.00
- Replacement bulbs – 10 @ $8.00 a piece.
Total: about $260.00.
Backdrop System:
I specialize in photographing newborns, toddlers, and older children. Because of this, I have extremely limited time to be changing out backdrops and need to be able to do it quickly and easily. Luckily, there’s an inexpensive solution for this, also from Cowboy Studio: Three-roller wall mounting backdrop support system.
Side note: Fotodiox also has a similar system, which you can find on Amazon. However, I can’t speak for its quality, as I haven’t used it!
The little plastic chains are surprisingly easy to use, and work pretty well, even with heavy backdrops! Also, DO NOT forget to use large wall anchor screws to mount the backdrop system. No one needs embarrassment with a client, or worse: a lawsuit, because of a mounting system that pulls out of the drywall and falls.
Simply mount the two ends of the wall mount system a little farther distance apart as your largest backdrop’s width. If your largest backdrop is 6 feet wide, set the distance between mounts to be 6.5 feet apart. If you might be expanding to larger backdrops later on, make sure to keep that in mind when you mount the system, as it’s FAR easier to easier to accommodate smaller backdrops than larger ones in the future!
Backdrop Support:
Speaking of the backdrop system, you also need to figure out how to hang your backdrops! This is where the crafty part comes in! The manual for the mounting system suggests using PVC or aluminum tubes as the cross bars to support the weight. I HIGHLY recommend PVC tubes. Luckily, I did the trial-and-error already, so you don’t have to!
PVC dimensions: 2” diameter Charlotte Pipe from any hardware store (they look like this). Usually these pipes come in 10ft. long segments, which you will need a handsaw or power tool to cut to the proper length. If you can find a store that will charge you by the foot, you will save some money. I had to buy one pipe for each backdrop, since my cut size was 6 feet in length (which meant 4’ of pipe was discarded – such a waste! I’ll keep that in mind for when I expand!).
How to mount the backdrops you ask? Simple! I used carpet tape from any hardware store. Both sides of the tape are sticky, with powerful adhesive, so you can hang anything from heavy vinyl to light paper backdrops without worrying about it peeling off. I found that using two strips of the carpet tape next to each other gives the best hold.
Backdrops:
With this set-up, you can literally use anything as a backdrop. Wallpaper, construction paper, fabric, vinyl, muslin, and even carpet! You can find rolls of paper at local craft stores (great for seamless wall to floor backdrops). I just rolled the paper off the cardboard tube it comes with and onto the PVC tube! Also, vinyl is actually much cheaper in craft stores than it is online.
We ran into a snag while using the paper and fabric backdrops. How can you keep the material weighted down to prevent curling or wrinkling of the material? The answer came with steel rods! You can pick up these at hardware stores…just find the proper weight and length to match your material. Fold up the bottom couple inches of whatever material you’re using, use carpet tape to adhere it and create a “pocket” for the rod to slide in, and BOOM you’re done. You now have a weighted bottom to your backdrop to ensure little/no wrinkling, no curling, and a smooth roll-up and roll-down of the material!
Backdrop Cost:
- Mounting System — $60.00
- Wall Anchors & Screws — $5.00
- PVC supports — $7.00 each
- Carpet tape roll — $9.00 each
- Backdrops – Varying costs (Vinyl was $20.00 for 2 yards each with coupon)
Total: about $100 but can go up depending on the number of backdrops you want to use.
Flooring:
Originally, I thought that this part of the studio project would be the most expensive. My old studio had beautiful wood floors, which were awesome for shoots. Unfortunately, my new space had carpet, and I mean bottom-of-the-barrel-cheap type of stuff. I thought I was going to have to purchase wood flooring and put it together piece-by-piece, but luckily my hubby found an amazing solution!
Remember vinyl flooring? That stuff that a few years ago looked so unbelievably hideous, and you would probably only use it for a mudroom or for the flooring of an RV/boat? Well, what used to be the ugly-duckling has done some growing up in recent years. I was shocked! Vinyl nowadays comes in such a variety that you can find exactly what you want, even wood floor imitators…and it actually looks like REAL wood! Can you tell it’s not wood in the picture below?
My husband went to the local discount flooring warehouse and snatched up some clearance items that had already been cut down from the full-size. Because of this, I was able to get 4 different 6 foot wide sheets of wood-imitation vinyl for less than 100 bucks! After cutting the sheets of vinyl to size, I actually had enough leftover to make a few backdrops too, one of which is long enough to be a seamless backdrop – talk about efficiency!
We did run into a problem when getting the vinyl into place – if you have carpet underneath, you’ll run into issues! One problem with carpet flooring when overlaying vinyl: when someone steps on the vinyl, the carpet pushes down, which gives a “sunken” look up on top. Solution: Plywood squares! These absorb that weight and stay rigid, providing a great base for the vinyl to lay on top of. We found these great connecting squares of plywood that have traction bottoms. You can buy just enough to fit the size of your space, and they’re cheap (they look like this)!
With this set-up, I can quickly and easily interchange flooring options for all of my clients. They can request one or two different flooring choices, and I just have those two options laying on top of each other!
Flooring Cost:
- 4 discount vinyl floors — $95.00
- 2×2 Plywood connecting flooring squares – 9 @ $6.00 each (makes 6×6 foot square)
Total: $150 with four flooring options!
BONUS: Baseboard Molding Hack:
My shooting style includes a bit of seamless backdrops and also ones with flooring/backdrop combos. I wanted baseboard moldings to imitate a real wall. Obviously, you have to fake this with no actual wall since you’re using a hanging backdrop.
The solution was pretty…interesting. But it was definitely a cool fix! Once you buy your baseboards and cut them to length, you’ll need to attach an L-bracket to each end of the baseboard with superglue (for maximum hold). The baseboard will want to tip forward at this point because of the top heaviness. To fix this you need to add counter-weights. My husband’s ingenious cheap solution?
Steel nuts! You can buy these for virtually nothing at any hardware store. Just superglue and stack them as high as you need to counter the weight of the baseboard. Once you’re done, you should have a freestanding baseboard that can just push up against the backdrop, imitating a real wall!
Baseboard Cost:
- 2 baseboards — $20.00
- Bag of L-brackets — $5.00
- Bag of 25 Nuts — $5.00
Total: $30.00
Props:
As a photographer who specializes in newborns and children, I’ve accumulated ROOMS of props. Yes, I’m using rooms as a unit of measurement! You can spend a small fortune on buying props specifically made for photographers. Reaching out in your local area to find people who are also starting up/running a baby prop business can also be very advantageous. I’ve partnered with Newborn Knits by Chelsea, a Lancaster-based crochet-queen who does AMAZING work! Check out her stuff and follow her Facebook page.
One of the walls in my studio is FULL of Chelsea’s great products!
You can also save a fortune on props by visiting local garage sales, antique outlets, and flea markets. For example, I found this absolutely stunning used saddle for about 10 bucks at an antique flea market. It took about 20 minutes (and a whole roll of paper towels) to clean it up, but it was totally worth it!
Also, many newborn photographers will splurge on a legitimate baby poser beanbags. These are specifically designed to help bring the best out of your shots! I recently purchased one of these myself as my business has grown, but did you know you can accomplish almost the same thing for a fraction of the cost?
Meet the Wal-mart beanbag. For those of you outside of the US, Wal-Mart is this magical place where you can find any product you can imagine, for cheap. This includes beanbag furniture, where you can pick up a small beanbag chair (like this one) for less than 30 bucks.
When the beanbag arrives, you will need to add more “fluff”, so I bought an extra bag of beans (like these), which gave me the perfect firmness I needed! A couple of microphone stands I picked up at a flea market, a curtain rod between the two, and some clamps will attach your blankets/cloth so you can drape it over the bag. DONE. You have a perfect newborn poser with a simple, easy, and cheap backdrop system.
- Props Cost — $50.00
- Beanbag poser — $26.00
- Extra “beans” — $16.00
- Mic stands — $20.00
- Curtain rod — $10.00
- Blankets/cloth — $20.00
Total: $142.00
It’s A Wrap:
I hope after reading this, you’ve gotten ideas as to how it’s possible to have your very own studio. You CAN do it yourself, and you accomplish it without breaking the bank! Of course, everyone’s situation is different…maybe you need to add more in the budget for additional backdrops, or perhaps you already have a lighting kit. Either way, the total budget for this project will change for you and my estimates should be used as guidance, not rule.
Project Cost:
- Lighting — $260.00
- Backdrops (system, supports, materials) — $100.00 +
- Flooring — $150.00
- Baseboards — $30.00
Total: ~$550.00 (more depending on the amount of backdrops you have)
And for the newborn photographer:
- Studio: $550.00+
- Props/posers/blankets — $142.00
Total: $692.00+
With just a few booked sessions, I had already paid for my new studio with all the props I need. The best part? I can actually call this space “mine”, and know that my own sweat, hard-work, and determination helped create my very own photography studio complete with everything I need! Best of all, this was all relatively affordable for the startup photographer, or perhaps for folks who want to take photos of their own family! Best of luck to your endeavours!
Have you ever done a photography studio DIY? I’d love to see your suggestions or ideas! Let me know in the comments below!
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