Including a bit set design to your studio pictures can add enormous worth in your shoppers and actually set your work aside. Right this moment, I’m sharing three DIY units you may create with easy supplies from the ironmongery shop—no energy instruments required.
At its core, a photograph set is only a backdrop plus a posing ingredient. In pictures, set design (typically referred to as set styling) is the method of making and arranging the bodily setting in your shoot. It’s all about crafting a visible area that helps the idea, temper, and story of your photographs.
Key Elements of Set Design
Backdrops and Partitions: Painted, textured, or printed backgrounds
Furnishings and Props: Chairs, tables, lamps, rugs, crops, or any object that helps your idea
Lighting: Whereas technically separate, lighting shapes how the set is perceived. Shadows, reflections, and highlights are all a part of the design
Shade Scheme and Supplies: Colours and textures evoke emotion and create aesthetic cohesion
For instance, photographing a musician for an album cowl may contain selecting a backdrop that matches their model, strategically inserting props like a chair or instrument, and including textures or objects that inform a narrative about their music.
We often construct units with plywood, energy instruments, and paint, however this time we needed to problem ourselves. What if we constructed three photograph units with no instruments in any respect, utilizing solely supplies from the ironmongery shop?
We determined every set ought to be impressed by a special aisle within the retailer, giving each a singular theme and idea. To make it much more thrilling, we gave ourselves simply someday: three units, three shoots, back-to-back, with no security web and no time to overthink.
Right here’s what we got here up with:
Set #1: The Painter’s Drop Material
We began within the paint aisle, the place a impartial tan painter’s drop fabric caught our eye. For a posing ingredient, David grabbed a paint bucket to behave as a makeshift apple field.
Since coloration is such an enormous a part of our work, we needed so as to add some. Portray the material would take too lengthy, so as an alternative we used a highlight with coloured gels. The outcome? Two fully totally different seems from the identical setup:
The feel of the drop fabric was a complete win—easy, versatile, and simpler than we anticipated. This was undoubtedly the most cost effective set of all three, however the pictures appeared surprisingly high-end.
Set #2: The Cowboy and the Hay Bale
Subsequent, we wandered into the landscaping part and located a straw blanket and a hay bale. The straw blanket turned the backdrop, and the hay bale served because the posing ingredient.
It didn’t go completely. The blanket was a lot thinner than anticipated, so we needed to get inventive with how we set it up. But it surely all got here collectively simply in time for our mannequin Justin, who arrived in a denim-on-denim cowboy outfit.
We lit the scene with heat tones to imitate a scorching, dusty solar and mixed seated and standing poses. It felt prefer it was straight out of a rustic music video.
Set #3: The Corrugated Plastic Field
For the final set, we hit the plastics aisle and picked up corrugated plastic sheets. With nothing however tape and a utility knife, we constructed an enormous DIY field.
This was essentially the most immersive set. Our mannequin might stand inside, evenly press on the partitions, and work together with the area. Then we blasted mild via the plastic, creating glowing, subtle partitions that remodeled the set.
The outcome? Surreal, otherworldly portraits that felt closest to our traditional model—wild, glowing, and futuristic.
Every set had its personal challenges, however that’s what made the day so thrilling. Some got here collectively shortly, some took extra problem-solving, however all three produced one thing distinctive and sudden.
You possibly can watch the total behind-the-scenes video above to see precisely how we constructed every set (and what each price). Which set is your favourite? Drop it within the feedback!
