It's actually easy (and often relatively cheap) to make some of your own items for a portable studio.
I've made a PVC backdrop stand that easily disassembles for transport. I use dyed canvas drop cloths and other large runs of cheap materials from my wife's fabric store clearance shopping runs.
A portable strobe with umbrellas, soft boxes, and other light modifiers is essential. Getting the exposure as good as possible in camera will help the final image to be easier to manipulate.
I used a large format camera trick I learned years ago to make the product stand out. Tilt. As in Tilt/Shift/Swing. On a large format camera, you can tilt or swing the lens board or the film back to change focus areas (focal plane) without affecting depth of field.
Since I'm not using a large format camera (any more) with all the movements, I used an image manipulation software program, in this case ACDSee Ultimate 8, to mimic the effect.
Here is the final image from one of this week's product shoots:
Explore your own options and ideas!
