My temp home studio

I've always been more of a mobile kinda photographer. On weddings and other events obviously I'm going to be shooting on location, but with portrait photography you either shoot in a studio setting or at a location agreed with the client. For the latter my philosophy is that my mobile studio is comprised of whatever fits in the trunk of my car. And since I always like to be prepared I always carry at least one camera, lens and flash and some basic accessories in the trunk. A tripod, light stand, umbrella and collapsible reflector completes the portable lighting setup. You never know when the need to do a quick shoot will arise.

Still, I've always wanted to try out shooting in a studio just for the heck of it. Not that I will be spending a lot of time in a studio in the near future, but I always like to keep my options open. So a couple weeks ago I purchased a backdrop stand, visited a friend of mine who's in the textile business, and freeloaded on several types of cloth to use as backdrops. It's nice having friends, right?

This weekend I finally had some time to setup the stand, put some backdrops on it and start shooting. The cool thing about this type of photography is that you have control over pretty much everything. Background, lighting quality and direction, etc. On location there are some things you provide, like extra lighting. Some things are there that you may choose to use as part of your shoot, like a cool brick wall full of graffiti. And mother nature calls the shots on pretty much everything else, like how much time you have before that nice setting sun disappears.

So there's pros and cons for both studio and on location photography. But like I always tell other photographers, try out everything you can, at least once. You may be surprised. For years, I was more of an available light photographer, using flash only at parties and other events. But when I tried using off-camera flash with umbrellas and other light modifiers on location, trying to replicate the studio look out on the street, I was hooked.

So just for the fun of it, I will setup my temporary "studio" in my living room every so often, and post the results to my blog.

Above, a picture I took of my youngest kid. I wanted to give it a vintage look so I played around with some textures and colors that I added to the original image.  Main lighting provided by Nikon SB800 through umbrella to camera left. Sun light through window at camera right used as fill.