5 Important Tips For Shooting In A Home Studio
When my friend Acea reached out about jumpstarting her modeling career by creating a portfolio, I was so excited. She specifically needed studio style shots to make up a portfolio to send out to potential gigs. I was very clear with her and told her that I only have experience shooting in natural light situations and don’t have any equipment to make that happen. She trusts my work so much that she wanted to do whatever possible to make things work with me.
We came to an agreement that If she bought my in-home studio set up, then I would take her photos for no extra charge. A solid WIN-WIN for both of us! It turned out to be so much cheaper than renting out local studio space.
Once the backdrop, paper, and octo-light arrived at my house, we set up a date to shoot her photos. I had so many nerves going into it. I even practiced on my cat. I truly had nothing to worry about, and the photos turned out great! There are a handful of things that I wish I would have thought through before our shoot. Here are my top 5 Tips for shooting in a home studio for the first time! Here you can find a list of all my camera gear.
Hardwood ONLY
I get it, you’ve probably wanted a set up like this FOREVER. At least I did. I was so excited to see it all set up that I did not think things through before doing so. I set up my paper mount and roll in my living room the minute it got delivered from amazon. The problem: carpet. NEVER set up a roll of paper on the carpet. Anything you set on it will tear through or crease it past the point of repair. Thank god my cat is the only thing that put tiny holes in the very edge of my set up and I wasn’t bold enough to just set a stool on it like I wanted to.
2. Use those clips
This may seem obvious, but don’t just set up your stand with paper and unroll it without the help of clips or a friend. Picture this, my roll of paper above me, 8-feet off the ground over my head. Me standing on my tippy-toes to grab the lip of the paper, and pulling down like they are some kind of window shade. Then, the weight of the paper slowly started to unravel until it got so heavy that gravity pulled out the entire roll! I wasn’t tall enough or quick enough to grab a stool to stop it from happening. I’m very fortunate that the paper didn’t rip off the cardboard core.
DON’T be like me… My recommendation is that you stand on a stool and unroll it from the top, then using your clips to secure it.
3. Lens Matters
The main reason I was nervous to shoot for the first time in my mini-studio is because of the restriction on my choice of the lens’. I only have a 50mm prime lens in my personal arsenal. The limited space between my backdrop and the couch was extremely worrisome. I’m thankful that my first shoot with this set up was with a close friend because I literally had to sit on the backrest of my couch pressed up against the window to get some of our standing shots… It is not very professional of me to have my legs dangling in the air as I shoot. My recommendation to you is that you take the time to see what kind of coverage you get from each lens in advance and adapt as necessary.
TIP If worse comes to worst then you can always stitch your photos together using the Lightroom “photo merge” feature! That’s what we did for these photos and they turned out to be one of the best shots from the session!
4. Mirror Mirror on the Wall
Having a mirror nearby was essential to having a successful shoot! While not usually a necessary tool, I found it extremely helpful for the model to change poses and really be in touch with her different expressions and poses. I could tell that she found comfort in having it there and as a result, the photos came out so good and natural.
5. Don’t Limit your Light
We shot for about two hours, cycling through different poses and outfits. We were about to wrap things up when I had the urge to change our octo-box lighting. I took off the diffusing cover and put it at a much more dramatic angle. Shocked is what I was when I saw the results. In what turned out to be my favorite shot of the whole session, my white backdrop became so moody and dark. I cannot stress to you enough that playing around with your lighting and experimenting is going to be the best way to get interesting and more custom looking results. Lighting is the most fun part of shooting at home!
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