Little Dog's New Photo Setup

One of the most important aspects of running an online shop is photography. The simple truth is that shops with beautiful product photographs sell more and receive more features.

For months I've been planning to make a neutral background wall with weathered wood table base to use for my shop photos, and this week we finally finished the display.

The new product photo setup includes:
1) A large wall on a rolling base for the background
2) An old weathered barn door attached to rolling wood beam table legs for the base
3) A large sheet of drywall leaned up against the left side of the display to reflect light coming from the window on the right back into the setup.

The large wall background will allow me to photograph larger items easily (maps, rugs, etc.) and the rolling base means I can move the setup around the workshop to capture the best natural light. The long wood table will be pushed against the wall to provide the base surface for the photographs, and the wheels allow it to move with the wall around the room. Here's how we built the wall and table (please excuse my fuzzy iPhone snapshots):

The Background Wall

First, we built the frame for the wall with 2x4s.

Then we screwed two pieces of drywall to the frame and cut off the edges that ran over the side of the frame.

Once both pieces of drywall were attached, we set to work making the rolling base using heavy pieces of salvaged wood from the burn pile at the dump. We added 6 wheels to the bottom to allow the base and wall to roll around the room.

Next, we attached the framed wall to the base.

And finally I mudded the drywall seam and screw holes, then painted the whole thing a neutral color.

The Table

I searched high and low until I found a weathered old barn door with just the right amount of wear, then removed the hinges, door handle, and latch hardware.

We cut a 4" x 4" wood beam from Home Depot into 4 sections for the legs, and attached them to the barn door with brackets and corner braces

Wheels were added to the bottom of the legs, then I gave the legs a coat of neutral paint.

And there you have it!



Now that the display has been built, I'll be rephotographing my existing shop stock with the new setup in addition to taking first time photos of the new items I've acquired over the past 4 months. In total, I have about 120 items to photograph so it will take me a while to get through them all. I will probably reopen the shop with about 20-30 items and continue photographing and listing over time. Once Thanksgiving is over (we're hosting both Josh & my family this year), I'm heading straight to the barn to work on photos!