From the course: Learning Craft Photography

Project: Converting your car's trunk into a mobile studio

From the course: Learning Craft Photography

Start my 1-month free trial

Project: Converting your car's trunk into a mobile studio

“

It's not often that you see a crafter just hanging out on the side of the road. But I made these pressed seaweeds, I went to the beach, and I collected some seaweed, and then I pressed it. And I'm going to sell it online, and I really need a nice, clean product shot. So what I'm going to do is convert the trunk of my car into a mobile photo studio. So that I can get that really clean, precise look without investing in studio time or a lot of really expensive equipment. So without further adieu, I'm going to put my crap down and show you what we need to get going on this project. First of all, we need our camera. Digital, SLR, Point-and-Shoot, whatever you've got access to. But I've got my Canon, so that's what I'm going to use. If you can find a roll of butcher paper or some kind of matte finish. wrapping paper, white, craft colored, gray, black, something in neutral that's going to really offset your craft's going to be the best. This happens to fit perfectly in the trunk of my car, and if it didn't, just snip it, it's no problem. Last but not least, we have our scissors. Every crafter's favorite tool, and these clamps that I picked up at the home improvement store. These things are invaluable, I use them all the time. They come in an assortment of different sizes, which is perfect. So let's get going. All right, so I'm just going to move my crafts aside put my camera somewhere safe. And were actually shooting in a pretty cloudy overcast day. So I don't really need to do this but I have a shot before where the sun is just beating down. And all you need to is take your clamps and cut a length of this paper, and you can attach it. Most of these hatchback cars have these perfect little lifts right here. You can just attach your paper, and it diffuses the light so well. You can also attach it to your windows on the inside. Again I'm going to skip it right now just because really cloudy and there's kind of a chance a storm is coming in. So we're going to move our clamps, I'm just going to roll this whole thing. I'm trying to be gentle so I don't put too many dents in it. This is not that super expensive backdrop paper that you use in a nice photo studio. It's just cheap craft paper. So, I drop that down. I'm actually going to use my clamps to hold it down. (NOISE) And it's so easy I already have a really clean background. All right. So, we're going to grab our image, place it right here. And I'm going to work so quickly, because it actually just started to rain. But that's fine because our crafts is protected by our mobile studio. Get in there. (NOISE) Okay, so let's see, I'm going to quickly meter. All right, that looks pretty good. (audio playing) Great. (audio playing) So I'm actually shooting right now at only a hundredth of a second, and my ISO is bumped up way high to 3200. The grain isn't that bad, but it's so dark right now, and it's actually raining, that I really want to get a good low right shot without using any flashes or anything. We've got a glass cracked here, so it's going to make a huge reflection. But working with what we've got, we have our two great crafts We're going to get a really nice, clean, studio-quality shot that we can put online. Sell our crafts, and it only cost us a few dollars for the paper and the clamps, we probably already had in our garage. And basically it's compact enough that we can drive around with all these stuff in our car. And take a really nice craft photo on a coffee break just while we're out roaming around enjoying the country side. So its a perfect way to get a good quality shot with no lot of money, no lot of time, no lot of space.

Contents