Behind the scenes I've been sewing some clothes, and have quickly learned taking pictures of yourself in clothes is a whole new challenge.
While trying to figure out how to take decent photos, the first thing that came to mind is it would nice to have a white wall. You may have noticed the walls in my place are blue. I like the blue, but it really sucks up the light.
Painting the walls is out of the question--costs too much, not my place, takes too long, etc. So I made my own wall...out of foam board and fabric.
This picture also illustrates the fish bowl effect of the camera lens. It is slighty off-kilter, but look at how the white trim pieces look curved. It is as straight as a board--quite literally. Oh pictures! Why are you so hard to take???
My backdrop is 7 pieces of 28" x 22" foam board taped together. One piece is cut in half, so there are 2 rows of 3 full sheets, plus one half sheet on each of the 2 rows. It measures about 77" high x 56" wide. Here it is on its side:
It cost $52.46 to make. How do I know this? I put the fabric dimensions and cost per yard into this spreadsheet, and where the labor calculation goes, I put in the cost of the foam boards as labor and the number of boards as the hours.
I used an embroidered cotton fabric because the texture will help hide any wrinkles. I've tried fabric backdrops before and any wrinkles really stand out.
So we'll see how it works. The good thing is if it doesn't work out, I can always use the fabric for something else. It is also lightweight, which makes it easy to move, but it is still quite large!
