Have you ever wondered how people took pictures of their models with a seamless single-color background? The secret is having a curve in whatever material you are using for a background. And I’m going to show you how to make a simple and inexpensive one. You’re going to need a couple of pieces of foam core or cardboard, a straight edge, an X-Acto blade, a pen, a hot glue gun, some double-sided tape and a solid color sheet of paper. The thicker the better. For mine, I used a Letter size sheet of glossy photo paper. Whatever size you choose, you’ll need to hot glue two pieces of foam core or cardboard at 90 degrees. And to support it as well as keep it from falling back, hot glue two support/legs to the rear of the vertical wall of the backdrop. Now place two strips of double-sided tape to the base. One should be on the edge and the other about 24mm(1in) parallel to it. It is crucial that these two pieces of tape are parallel. As the second piece of tape is where the curve is going to start. If this piece of tape is not parallel and if its wiggly, it’s going to bitch up your background curve. To find the location of the third piece on the vertical wall, hold your piece of paper at the edge of the base and gently flex it into shape. Keep in mind you want to have a flat section before the curve. This section is where you will place your photo subjects. Now mark a line on the vertical wall where your piece of paper ends. Making sure it runs high enough so when you are taking pictures, it will fill the frame. Place the double-sided tape, making sure they’re all straight and parallel to one another. The order in which I removed the backing of the tape was, the two on the base then the one on the vertical wall. Now comes the tricky part. Lift the edge of the paper carefully to remove the backing of the last piece of tape. Don’t flex it too much and put a crease in it. You want to have a seamless defect free curve. Now just setup your lights, put your camera on a tripod and shoot away. I made mine this size so it could easily fit on my workbench so I can take some “In Progress” shots and keep working without making a production out of it. This way I didn’t have to stop what I’m doing, relocate to my so-called “shooting area”, set everything up, shoot, then locate back to the workbench to continue working. You can scale it up to any size to meet your needs. If you go larger, I recommend using something stronger like Gator board or Masonite for the base and vertical wall. Along with styrene or some other sheet plastic for the background curve. And to secure it into position with your favorite two-part epoxy. If you struggle with photographing your models, you may want to look into this post, “Photographing Scale Models”. Hope you found this useful and helpful.
Build what brings you joy,
Steven
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