Quick Down and Dirty Sweep For Auction Site Photos

A sweep is a seamless or creaseless backdrop. For product photography or auction site photography one can be cheaply and quickly made using supplies from the Dollar Tree. all that is needed is colored tagboard or wrapping or craft paper depending upon the size of the object you want to be photographed. For small items the tagboard will do for larger items and wrapping paper works great for bigger oness. If you need pure white use the backside of christmas wrapping paper.

The set up is easy. Put a chair onto a table facing outward. Tape or weight the wrapping paper to the opposite end of the table from the chair. Very loosely unroll the roll of paper up onto the top of the chair. Leave a lot of slack in it so it creates a big bow for the sweep. Put a small piece of tape onto the roll to keep it from unraveling any further and tape it to the top of the chair. You can now photograph your item on the table. i prefer using a room with soft natural light. No harsh direct sunlight. A Cloudy or foggy day works really well. A reflector made out of cardboard and aluminum foil can be used to bounce light into shadowed areas.
For smaller obects I just tape the tagboard to the end of the table and lean it up against the chair until I get a nice sixty to ninety degree bend in it and then I tape it to the chair.

Here are some sample images created using brown wrapping paper.

good luck and God bless,

chris

DIY Beanbag and Help a Hungry Person

Sometimes when you go on a trip you just don't want to lug along a tripod or there are weight limits on luggage. Perhaps you are going on safari and no tripods are allowed to be used on the Land Rovers. A great alternative even for use on your own vehicle is a bean bag. You can purchase one and they typically sell for twenty to forty US dollars. A cheap and easy route is to go to Dollar Tree and buy some mesh laundry bags. They are 12inches by 15 inches in size with a zipper. They come three to a package for just a buck plus tax depending upon where you live.. They weigh hardly anything and won't take up much space in your suitcase or travel bag. When you arrive at your destination you can stop at a local market and buy four pounds of local beans or nuts to fill your laundry bag /bean bag. At the end of the trip have you or your guide donate your bag with the beans or nuts to a local food bank or needy person.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

DIY Fake Barn Siding/Wooden Table

I am always looking for cheap back drops and props to use in my photography. Also I have always admired those photos of an old wooden table with a bible on it lit by a burning candle. Off to the side there is always a pair of reading glasses or an old fountain pen or some other treasure. In any case I always wanted to create my own version of this iconic image. The problem was I lacked an old wooden table.

While cleaning up the front yard I came across a couple of old wooden pallets that I had been using to keep my firewood off of the ground with. Pallets are fairly easy to get cheaply or even free. I get them free from the local lumber yard as they always seem to have too many of them from all the deliveries they get.

In any case I looked at the pallet and that weathered wood and bingo a table was born. I took a nail puller, a hammer and a crowbar and went to work taking those babies apart. In about ten minutes time I had a nice pile of weathered wood. The next step was simple I lined up all the flat pieces side by side. On top of that I placed two more of the flat pieces from the pallet. Then I took my screw gun. All photographers should have one. (recquired equipment you know) and a bunch of short decking screws and screwed the whole thing together.

Those worn pieces of wood are now perfect to act as an old table or it can be used to replicate the side of an old barn for portraits.

God’s precious light to all,

Chris

DIY Backdrop or Reflector

This last summer I did a lot of hummingbird photography. To do hummers it takes a lot of set up time with backgrounds and reflectors. Most of the time I used colored sheets or fabric hung from my studio back drop. This was a major pain when the sun shifted or the wind came up. When that happens you have to take down the backdrop and then set it up again to keep the back drop out of the sun or wind. Studio back drops resemble sail boats. They can really move in the wind.They move right over into the ground or onto your spouses favorite rose! I did get some good hummer images but my mind got to thinking there has to be a better way.

The Dollar Tree comes through again! ( Hey, When are you corporate guys going to start paying me for plugging your store all the time?). I had better get to the point here huh? Well anyway I was in there yesterday and I noticed that they had plastic table cloths that were a perfect sky blue. To top it off they were 54 inches by 108 inches. A pretty good size. Then I saw that they had black,red and a couple of other shades of yellow and another blue and even a bright white. Wow, I thought to myself these will work pretty good for cheap, throw away back drops. The white can be used as both a reflector or a background.

I was still stuck with the same old problem though. What could I put it on that would stand up in the wind and be easy to move? The answer came to me this morning. I was excavating ‘er I mean cleaning out my garage. While cleaning I came across two 4'x8' sheets of quarter inch Masonite. It's similar to pegboard except there are no holes in it. Masonite is fairly light though a little to flexible to stand on its own. I immediately went down to the Dollar Tree and bought some thumb tacks and some of the table cloths. The next stop was the lumber yard where I bought eight 1" x 2" x 8' furring strips for a dollar thirty five a piece. I also grabbed a couple of handfuls of inch and a half wood deck screws and then some ¾” ones as well. The next step was really easy. My wife even remarked. "You sure did that fast."

Basically I made a four foot by eight foot rectangular frame out of the one by twos. I then put the Masonite on top of the frame and screwed it down tight. I then took three one by twos and used them to stiffen up the back. At present all that remains to be done is to tack the table cloth onto the framework with the thumbtacks and I have got a backdrop or in the case of the white tablecloth a great reflector. These are going to come in really handy for both backyard bird photography and studio work. I could even hinge two of them together and have a bookend reflector.

So how do you stand one of these up? At present I'm only using one as a backdrop for my bird photos. I'm just tying it to a step ladder and sometimes to a tree (depending upon the sun) with a short piece of rope. For indoor use I'm thinking of making a a plywood base with some small angle braces made of either plywood or one by two. For those of you with standard eight foot ceilings you may have to cut down your frame a few inches to be able to use it indoors.

I have taken a few sample pictures with one and they came out OK. But what was fantastic is that the back drop didn't move an inch in the wind. It was also very easy to move and reset up in a new location. I sprayed a little green spray paint on the plastic tablecloth to break it up a bit for a couple of the images.

My next step is going to be to paint one side black and the other side white and check out how well they will work in a studio setting. One side will act as a gobo and the other as a reflector. If I hinge two of them together it will make a really sturdy bookend reflector.

God's precious light to you and your loved ones,

Chris

DIY Moth Photography

Today's post isn't very complicated. In fact it's pretty darn straight forward and simple. I'm sure you can figure out any details I may have left out on yer own.
Macro photography of insects is an addictive habit. I love chasing after butterflys,dragonflys,grasshoppers you name it. For some reason early this spring I got hooked on moth madness. Turn the light on and they will come. I noticed that there were a lot of moths this year compared to last. In fact last years spring was so drawn out there was a major die off of many species of moths and butterflys in my area. This resulted in bats struggling to find food sources. Well I'm off topic here.

The basic premise is to leave an outdoor light on all night. In the morning you go out and photograph the accumulated moth species that have gathered on the outside of your house. In researching some moth sites. Yes, there are moth sites. I found that many scientists collect moths by putting a light behind a large white sheet draped between two poles or even stepladders. They sometimes use black or ultraviolet light sources.

In the morning if it is a cool one I have found that you can sometimes, I repeat, sometimes move moths to a more natural setting by slipping a dark piece of construction paper slowly under them and carefully carrying them to a new spot and slowly sliding them off.

I use natural light, a tripod and a gold metalic reflector to fill the shadows. The lens I use is a 100mm flat field focus lens made by Phoenix. This lens is identical to theVivitar and probably made for a few other companies as well. I use it with a set of Kenko extension tubes.

So turn on the lights sweet darlin' tonight we're gonna play.

God's light and love to all,

Chris

DIY Knothole Feeder

Have you ever seen those cool pictures of birds and squirrels poking there heads out of knotholes in trees? The photographer must have spent days following birds around trying to find their nests. Well I actually have done that and gotten some neat shots of birds bringing in food to their young. But what do you do about the times when its not nesting season? Well one day when I was getting some wood from the wood pile I came up with a great idea. I picked up a piece of firewood that had a knothole in it and the bark came right off of the wood with the knothole in it. I got to thinking... Some of you out there are already ahead of me here. Why not add a feeder to the backside of the bark? After a number of tries of using wood, wire and string I finally settled upon using some wood screws, a coffee can and some Plaster of Paris. Basically its a simple messy process. Put the can on a stick. Spray paint the inside of the can black. Put the can opening on the back of the piece of bark centered over the knothole. After that you drill a circle of wood screws into the bark around the can. Be carefull here not to go through the bark with the wood screws. Next you mix up a batch of Plaster of Paris and build up a wedge or ramp around the can onto the bark. Making sure to cover the wood screws to hold it all together. Let it set for a couple of hours and your done. All you need to do now is find a convenient fence or pole to mount your feeder on. It is best to place it near other feeders to help critters discover the feed that you put inside of it. Be sure to take into consideration what kind of light you want to fall on it. It also helps with birds to place feeders of any kind near bushes for cover. They are a lot more comfortable feeding in places they know they can dive off into safety if a predator comes near like some photog with a giant lens of some kind. As usual I have attached some directions and some samples of what can be accomplished using this type of cool cheapo feeder.

God's light and love to all,

Chris