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Ingredients: Cardboard Box (21"x25"x3), a razor knife, 4 clothespins, Sheets of matte construction paper (28"x22" in as many different colors as you'd like), a wall or chair. Power tools needed: none.
The "Seamless" holds a special place in the world of product photography. When you see magazine shots of mouth-watering Godiva chocolates, Gucci purses or even babies playing with Goodyear Tires, the pictures are almost invariably shot on a seamless background. The Seamless eliminates the hard shadows that are created where the vertical part of the background meets the horizontal part, essentially, where the wall meets the floor. These shadows can be distracting, and divert attention from the most important thing in the photograph: The Product.
Madison Avenue is in the business of getting you to buy things, and so are online auction sellers.
If you've had professional photography experience, then you know how expensive the equipment can be. I spent 15 years as a videographer and much of it was spent trying to figure out how to create a "Hollywood" effect on a "Natick, Massachusetts" budget. What really matters is the end result: how your pictures look.
With that in mind, I did a bit of "dumpster-diving" at my local mall and brought home a medium-sized, flat cardboard box. With a few swipes of my trusty razor knife, I had the box gutted and ready to be used as a frame for my seamless background. I stopped at a local Crafts store and purchased several sheets (28"x22") of fairly light gauge construction paper for $.33 each. You want the paper to be heavy enough to keep light from bleeding through it, but light enough to bend without creating creases. You also want to make sure that you buy a matte cardboard. You don't want light reflecting off of the background, or, if you use a flash from your camera, flares.
See a photograph tutorial demonstrating the process at
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/pages/seamless.
Open the cardboard box up so that you have a "wall and a floor" and prop it up next to a wall, or rest it on a sturdy chair. The chair is my preference, since it brings everything up to a more comfortable shooting level. Get a sheet of construction paper, and, with clothespins, clip the top two corners of the construction paper to the cardboard "frame." Let the construction paper fall along the cardboard until you have a nice curved corner where the wall meets the floor. Use two more clothespins to clip the bottom corners in place. You may have to make a few adjustments to find the optimal placement of the construction paper on the cardboard.
That's it. Place the entire assembly in a well-lit area, or set up your lights, and you're ready for shooting.
Here are a few things to remember when you start taking pictures:
Rule #1) If you're using a chair to support your seamless, make sure that your item is sitting on an area where the chair is giving it support underneath. If your seamless overhangs the chair, and you place your item where there is no support, your whole set (and your item) will come tumbling down.
Rule #2) Place your item as close to the front of your seamless as possible (keeping in mind Rule #1). The more distance your item has from the background, the better your shot will look.
Rule #3) Don't worry about getting areas around the seamless in your shot. This is why the "Crop" feature was created in image editing software.
Rule #4) Use background colors that make your item stand out. You can't go wrong with black and white backgrounds, but try to avoid putting a white item on a white background (unless you don't want anyone to see it).
Of course, you won't be able to shoot large items on this background, but you also don't have to stick to my dimensions either. If you have larger items, you may want to consider material draped over the backs of a couple of chairs.
I don't have a dedicated area of the house for taking pictures, so when I'm done shooting, I can fold everything up and stick it in a closet. No muss, no fuss. If my cardboard frame gets damaged, I go "dumpster-diving" again. If my dog eats a background, I give her a Pepcid AC and invest $.33 in another sheet of construction paper.
If you can't build this for under $5, then there's something wrong, or I've slept through an economic runaway inflation. The portable seamless that I put together cost about $1.50, which includes 4 sheets of colored construction paper for different backgrounds.
Try it out for yourself. The seamless itself may not be too pretty to look at, but your photographs will look "Mah-velous!"
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