How to Make a Homemade Photography Studio for Under $20

Have you ever wanted to get professional photos of your family taken, but when you did your research you realized that you just could not afford it? Professional-looking photos of those you love are items that will be treasured for years and years to come, but you don't have to feel like bad if you cannot turn to the many "professionals" that are out there and who will charge you a nice sum of money that you probably don't have. Instead, do your own professional photos... and do it all for less than $30, and as many photos as you desire! Here's how to do it.

First of all, you need to get all your items together to make this possible. You may find that you have some of things in your home already, and therefore the cost of this project will go down! You will need a white bed sheet as a backdrop, work lights (you can buy them for around $6 at stores like Wal-Mart), natural light lightbulbs (you can buy these for about $2), a car sunshade, and parchment baking paper. And of course, you need a nice roomy space and your camera that has adjustable settings (most digital cameras do).

So, once you have all the items needed for this homemade photo studio, go ahead and start putting things together. First of all, tack the white bed sheet up on the wall where you want your backdrop to be. Make sure you cannot see through the sheet to whatever is behind it, as some sheets can be very thin. Up above, on the ceiling light, install those natural light lightbulbs because you want there to be natural light, no florescent or any other. Next, set up your work light to point toward the sheet (or to shine on the person's face that you are photographing) and cover it with the parchment paper. Please make sure you use the proper paper, made for baking, as you don't want to start any fires here!

Position a chair or stool two feet in front of your backdrop sheet and have the person you are photographing sit down. As you eye the scene, make sure there are no shadows showing - this means that you will need some help moving your work lights around and holding them in a position where there are no shadows at all. At the same time, you will need someone to hold the reflector in the proper position to achieve nice lighting on your subject. You need to learn to eye this, and the more experienced you get, the better the photos will be!

Next, so that the white backdrop doesn't come out yellow as is common for it to do in a photo, set the white balance on your camera to 3,000K. If you need to play around with the settings even more, feel free to do so. Practice makes perfect, and you will be happy with those photos!