How to Build a Studio Setting in Your own Home

I love it when readers email in their home studio DIY setups. Here’s one that Brian Scott sent in with a description on how he did it. It’s pretty basic stuff that most of us could achieve but it’s interesting to see what our readers are doing with these sorts of setups – if you’ve got one to show us share it in comments below.

If you own your own house like I do, or at least have access to a relative’s or friend’s basement, then you’ve got your own makeshift photography studio.

And you don’t have to spend a lot of money to make it, either.

Basements often have rooms used for storage, which means not a lot of people outside of the homeowner get to see the rooms. That means if they’re dark, dirty or damaged, no one outside of the homeowner gets to know.

Thus, you might be able to screw things into the wall (like I did) to make a backdrop for your own studio.

If you’ve got the space, here are the steps:

1. buy two coat hooks at a hardware store. They don’t have to be pretty or expensive, just useful.

2. find a sheet you’d like to use as a backdrop and measure its length and width – the longer and wider, the better.

3. screw the hooks into the wall, making sure the distance between them is about the same as the width of the sheet you’re using, and that they’re at the same height.

4. attach the sheet to a shower rod. The top of the sheet won’t be seen in your photos so feel free to cut hole along the edge if you want to tie it to the rod, or use some cheap clamps like I did.