Yesterday I setup a quick portrait studio in our house so that I could take maternity pictures of Reagan’s big belly. You can see them here, if you have a Flickr account and you’re recognized as either a friend or family of mine. Here’s how to make that happen:

• Signup for a Flickr account. If you already have a Yahoo! account you can use that.
• Email me your Flickr account name. Once you’re on my family and friend list you can see the maternity images.

Not a friend of mine in real life? Don’t try the above steps.

Making the images

I picked up a roll of black background paper at a local San Antonio camera store for $26. The black background eliminates distractions and since the maternity shots are in black and white - our black clothing is able to blend into it. I turned some bedroom furniture around so that I could clamp the top of the background paper to it. I used three Quick-Grip clamps (pack of 4 at Lowe’s for $15) to attach the paper to the furniture.

Next I used an umbrella stand to hold an umbrella and Vivitar 285 flash. The umbrella was positioned to the right of the camera and pointed to the middle of the background. The Vivitar is a super cheap flash (about 1/5th the price of a Canon 580ex) and it works like a champ. A Pocket Wizard is attached to the flash to catch the signal coming from the Pocket Wizard on the camera. This is how the camera and the remote flash fire at the same time without being physically connected. The umbrella and stand are really inexpensive. The Pocket Wizards are pricey but there is an alternative product that is about $20 and would do just as well for this setup.

Finally, I used a $20 camcorder tripod to hold the camera. As mentioned above the camera also has a Pocket Wizard attached, in this case, to the hot shoe (where a flash normally goes). I used a 50mm f/1.4 lens at 100ISO, shutter speed of 1/250, and an aperture of f/11 for most of the images. The Vivitar flash was manually set to 1/2 or 1/4 power, depending on how far Reagan was from the umbrella. I positioned her far enough from the background that it did not have light spill onto it.

Coolest part of this project? Reagan would never have had belly pictures taken outside the comfort of our home.

I’m still learning this stuff and if you would like to as well I highly recommend starting at the Strobist blog. The instructions there are focused on doing really cool lighting for as cheap as possible.

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