Mini Studio, mini success?

So a couple of weeks ago, an inspiration hit me. I wanted to create a super low budget photography studio at home. Something where its super cheap, yet practical and at the same time, allows me to experiment on photography. I was watching some youtube videos online about how to set up a studio, when it suddenly dawned upon me that creating one was actually possible. It not only allowed me to learn a little more about photography techniques on my own, but also have fun with it at the same time.

After adopting some initial ideas from the videos that I watched,  I started brainstorming stuff that I would need, while at the same time, keeping costs as low as possible. I came up with several items that were essential to set up, on top of the things that I could already find at home. Mainly the items already available were some tables, a lamp and other small accessories. The rest would have to be bought and my immediate answer would to head to Daiso, where you can have cheap 2 dollar stuff on every aspect from stationery to garden and DIY departments.

I got my stuff and it costs only 20 dollars in total to set my photography studio. Total of 10 items except for the mahjong paper which I got from Evergreen Stationery at $2.50 a stack. I was really surprised at how cheap I could go with the stuff that were essential in creating a studio.

The studio is really small, and really budget. It aint the best out there, and there are many aspects that needs to improve on. But that can wait, since I’m just starting out and I want to experiment and have fun at the same time. You will be amazed at how far you can go with so little.

I had to purchase the clone troopers at $10 a piece. I specifically chose those figurines because they were; 1) Really cheap considering the level of detail, and 2) For that price, they are super articulated. That means, the figurines have really good joints and they are very poseable. With around 14 articulating points, you can actually do a number of creative poses using the figurine. 3) They are faceless and emotionless. By using just the body expression, you do not have to worry about the facial expressions destroying the very expression you want to convey, by the poses. The masks really helped here.

The figurines took a while to acquire, since they were manufactured in 2005, and no longer in production. I had to purchase those pair online and one got severely delayed. So while waiting, I used other figurines that I had lying around the house to experiment and make sure that everything is set up properly.

I had a blast. I learned a lot about lighting and flash photography just by playing around with the light source and flash unit. The studio gave me a very good opportunity to start on still-life photography. I have yet to reached to the state where you can do really good stuff with multiple sources of lighting and different coloured lighting to make it more professional, but this is definitely a good start.

There are definitely improvements to come along, mainly the number one thing i need to improve is adding a secondary source of light, rather than relying on one. This would definitely give me better creative muscle to experiment on it.

So cap it off, all you need are some cheap stuff from daiso, and loads of creativity.