Shoestring Studio Continued

(This rack was photographed outdoors to show the full size,
but it's meant to be used indoors.)

Pretty fabrics suitable for backgrounds can be hung over the top of a collapsible clothes rack. A cheap rack will do - mine was $5 US and is holding up quite well. 1.5 - 2 yards of fabric is plenty if you use a table in front of the rack. Sometimes suitable background fabrics can be found at a good price on remnant tables in fabric stores. If a lacy fabric is used, a solid color can be used behind it, perhaps one of the other fabrics in your collection. If the fabric tends to slip, it can be held in place with safety pins or clothes pins by fastening the front and back layers together near the top of the rack.

This setup, in addition to a small fold-up, adjustable height, table to set the subjects on, was used for each of the images below.

White crinkly material:

Lacy curtain material:

Black velvet:

Soft, sheer, print fabric:

Same curtain fabric as in the red tulip image:

"Wherever there is light, one can photograph."
~ Alfred Stieglitz ~

More Background Ideas (Shoestring Studio)

If you need a background for your macro and close-up shots of small things, you can make your own. Create them in programs like Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop pro, and similar graphics programs. Design them to fit a standard-sized sheet of paper. Add colors, brush strokes, filters, whatever you like, in the colors you like. Print them out on matte finish paper (the less shine, the better) and store them in archival quality vinyl sleeves. Put them in a notebook for safe keeping.

You can also take pictures to be used as backgrounds - a brick or stone wall, pebbles on a beach, feathery grasses growing in a field, trees, tree bark, rocks, water, aged wood siding, whatever - use your imagination. Print them to fill the page. If you like, you can apply some Gaussian blur to them before printing to give the illusion of shallow depth of field.

Another source for backgrounds can be found on digital scrapbooking sites. Many of those are offered as freebies (for personal use). Crop or resize them to fit to your photo paper and print them out.

The following 3 images were photographed using backgrounds from my original printed collection.





This image was taken with a mirror under the flower and a black foam sheet standing up behind it, so that the part of the mirror that is in the picture reflected only the black foam (and the flower). Natural light was used.


The background for this image is a sheet of cork tile.

"The camera is my tool.

Through it I give reason to everything around me."

~ Andre Kertesz ~