Background ideas for product photography
Creating a nice, clean and interesting background can be challenging. Here are few ways to make it easier:
Cardboards
I have a whole bunch of cardboards
My other favorite has got to be this black one that I often use to photograph my recipes. I honestly feel that it took my food photography to a whole different level.
I use these tiny clips to keep the board in place. Can’t tell you how many times it fell over on the food I was photographing :).
I place my food (or product) on a small wood palette that my husband helped me make and I put this huge piece of black cardboard behind my subject. When my lens focuses on the presented food, the background is softened and loses a bit of focus, which makes it look like I’m taking my photos against a black wall. Cool thing about this is that I can use any color that I want, making it different and interesting each time. For some reason, I really like black; I think that it creates a nice contrast between the food and the background.
Computer wallpaper
This is yet another easy and essentially free way for creating unique setting. Just change your wallpaper on your computer to anything that you want, place it behind your products (stacking them up on books or something else that you find handy) and take your pictures.
This is my set up when taking pictures using a desktop wallpaper (you could do the same thing with a laptop). I place my products in front of the monitor, I have my tripod and my ring light in front and I snap away.
Placemats
I have tons of different placemats (not gonna lie, I’m a bit obsessed with them) and sometimes I use them for non-food photography as well. Here I was taking a picture of a hair product that came in white/pink packaging. At first I took it against white background and just “wasn’t feeling it”. I looked around the kitchen thinking of something to use and then I noticed my pink placemats. I leaned one against my laptop, placed my products in front of it, added some flowers in the back and it looked 10 times better.
The day when these were taken was a very gloomy one and I really struggled with these photos. It was so difficult to get my background to look pure white or even close to white. I really don’t like the dull, sad gray color that I kept getting. I can’t tell you how many times I’d spend hours trying to get a nice picture only to find that once imported into my computer they all look like crap. At the beginning of my blogging adventure I didn’t let that bother me too much and I thought that as long as I have a picture to go with the post, I’m good. After a while that started to bother me a little bit and I decided to put more effort into it and go for quality over quantity. That was when my love for photography was born. I can spend hours taking pictures, but if I’m not completely satisfied with the finished product, I won’t publish them and try to do it all over again the next day. I realize that some may think “it’s just a blog, it’s just a picture, who cares?” The truth is, right now my blog is a huge part of my life. I never had a hobby, never had passion in my life. Once you find that thing that you love doing so much, you only want to do your best and this is exactly what I’m trying to do.
White backdrop
Last year I came across searching for inspiration for photography. She had this cool tutorial for an “infinity effect” backdrop. To create one all you need is a stapler, a fairly large box and a piece of white paper. This set up is great for product photography; it creates crease-less, uniform background and looks clean and bright. I do have to mention, however, that this works the best with natural light.
This was taken using the same method, but I also edited it in Photoshop Elements using the “dodge” tool to create that flawless, white background.