Beauty Blog Photography Tips: DIY Photo Infinity Edge Backdrop

Recently I grew tired of my haphazard way of creating a photography background. So, last week I finally made a trip to Jo-Ann Fabrics, where for less than $20 I created the collapsible tabletop photography background you see above. It took less than 10 minutes and has made taking pics in my office (confession: usually on the floor) much easier and the results are more professional looking.

This has been a huge improvement over my DIY photo cube!

So, like a lot of people, I followed the directions that are all over the internet for creating a photobox, phototent, whatever it's called. I really thought that this would solve all of my photo problems. One place to take pics with ahhhmaaazing lighting, a nice clean background, etc. But, it didn't work like that. I couldn't get my camera to fully compensate for the inadequate lighting, despite the white box I was still getting issues with color casts (those are full spectrum light bulbs and this was despite fixing the white balance each pic session). Anyways, the point is that the box wasn't all that and a bag of chips.

I found that really, I needed sunlight. My office faces west, and gets pretty good afternoon light. I started taking pics in there, frequently on the floor, as I need to clean off my desk. I have a piece of white cloth (leftover from making black out shades for my daughter's room), and I usually end up putting it on the ground, propped up by something. Here it is draped over a basket of products I need to test. Sure, it worked, but usually there were a lot of folds and the back drop often wasn't large enough.

So, I decided to make a bigger, brighter and collapsable backdrop. I saw similar items for sale on-line, though they often weren't very portable and more often than not they were sold out.

Here's how I did it!

So, I think these directions are pretty self-explanatory. I did take the fold that I cut off and place it under the other small fold, and then I taped it there with a piece of white duct tape. White so that it would blend in with everything else. This did make the base a bit heavier, though still the center of balance is a tad off so it is best if you lean this against something (again, I'm using the same wicker basket). But, overall things are much better off as the backdrop is much straighter, taller and wider.

I think these results speak for themselves. Same settings, taken in the same room, about 2 minutes apart. The ISO is set at 100 because when I took the pic on Macro in the box (taken first), the camera automatically picked it (seems like 400 would have been better). Regardless, I used the same settings on my new background, and the results were much better! The new pic is much easier to just brighten suddenly and have a great blog pic.

Best of all, the entire thing just folds up and I can easily store it away. I haven't thrown away that cube I made yet, but I probably will soon.

Let me know if you make one of these and how it works for you!