Life Behind A Lens

I thought I’d share a little information about doing a shoot on a budget, seeing as I am doing it rather a lot and that I’ve had some success with the resultant photographs, just using what I could find around the house..

So, here’s the image I’m using as an example of my low cost creations:

This is one of my favorite images that I’ve created and part of that is due to the way that it was created. It was shot in one of the bedrooms of my home with no studio equipment.. Well, with the exception of a tripod…

So, here’s my shopping list (including the actual photographic gear)...

Photographic Stuff

• Camera. (well, yes.. Obviously) In this case, my Canon EOS 400D with my Sigma DG 28-300mm lens.
• My tripod.
• Conin A, soft focus filter (A380) plus the associated lens adaptor ring and filter holder, of course. (If you don’t have filters, then this particular set up was about £20 I think)

The Other Equipment/Props

• One Model (In this case, my girlfriend, Little-Red, so it didn’t cost me anything.. Well, perhaps dinner tomorrow night…)
• The models clothes. (She comes equipped with these… Well, mostly..)
• One dining room chair.. (Already lying around the house just waiting to be used)
• One 10M length of red bondage rope (About £10 from ebay)
• A table reading lamp with adjustable neck (I discovered this particular one laying at the back of a long forgotten cupboard, looking rather disheveled.. It’s amazing what you can find if you go looking)
• 2 red supermarket carrier bags (Free from the supermarket, and I’ll explain what they are for in a minute…)
• 2 black sheets for a kingsize bed (£12 for the two).
• 1 roll of normal sticky tape (£1 from a cheap stationers)
• Gimp Software. (Free Open Source Software)

Okey, so we’ve got all our stuff together and, other than the actual camera equipment, I actually spent a total of £23.. I’ve included the sheets in the cost because I bought them specifically for my photography.. If you already use black sheets to sleep on, then you’ve got an even cheaper project!

So, to get the finished work that you see at the top, I shot this:

The soft focus was gained from the filter on the camera and the red lighting was achieved from the small table reading lamp with the two red supermarket carrier bags taped over it.

A word of warning with this! The bulb in the lamp gets hot! Do not leave it on for too long at any one time, and give it a few minutes to cool off!! Otherwise you risk melting the bags and starting a fire!!

I then carried out all of the post processing in Gimp which is an entirely free package.

(For a tutorial on using Gimp to selective colour, Go here)

So, in total I spent £23 on props and equipment that I didn’t have lying around the house already (or had already purchased as part of my hobby.. My camera, for example).

So, for anyone that’s looking to do some moody and erotic based work but thinks they need special stuff.. Nope, you don’t.. Just take a look around and see what you can use.. :)

Edit
Kriss (CLiPiCs) very kindly bubblemailed me with some other ‘Shoot it on the cheap’ Journal posts that he wrote and they are brilliant! So if you found this useful, go and have a read of them!
Photography on the Cheap!
Photography on the Cheap Part Two
Studio Speed Test