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DIY Sets

Lesson 15 from: Senior Photography: Break the Mold

Blair Phillips

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Lesson Info

15. DIY Sets

Next Lesson: Blair's Prop Shops

Lesson Info

DIY Sets

This next segment is near in dear to my heart because I am very much a do it yourselfer. I'm not the guy that can just go out and say, Let's hire crew to do this And I want to change this wall here and I wanna build another one here and that just doesn't work that way in my in my area with me, I have to make it happen. So this next segment is geared. It's going to show a lot of my indoor says. So if you don't have a studio or an indoor space, don't worry about it, because you can still use all this stuff and create this this same type of thing outdoors somewhere. So just because this is indoor sets doesn't mean that it's only relatable to indoors. When I first started, I didn't have a studio, so I started outdoors and I would find things and build things and do things. And then that way it prepared me for when I did have my studio to know that Hey, I can build and do and see and create. And then that way to what I like about doing it yourself is after a couple of years. If you want to ...

change it, I can have a big bonfire and burn it. And I have very little money invested in it. Now, some of the things I'm gonna show you do cost more than others. But most of it is all inspired by doing it yourself. So this next segment again, I feel like of, like, one of those motivational workout people. But I'm not really in good shape. So my goal is to motivate you again into not feeling lazy, not feel lazy. This next picture, I do not want you to be this guy. Imagine this guy when he went to work. Okay. Is this guy gonna feel really good when he goes home? Like I don't really rely on deal with it? Who cares? Is that how we are on our own loves? Is that what we're gonna do? You know that what you're gonna do, not me. I'm going to get off. I'm gonna kick that thing out of the way. I'm gonna keep paving the road that I know that I need to Now in my studio, I basically built every set that I have grandpas, that you He's telling me I'm doing a great job here. That or that's a Seattle thunderstorm. I don't know. One of the two. We're gonna go with his grandpa. Good talk, man. Thanks. So I still get motivation from above about that build every set. Basically, everyone of my sets has built off of a 10 by 10 section something I'm gonna build a set. I wanted to be 10 feet wide, and at least I was kind of like 10 feet tall, if possible. So 10 by 10. The reason being I shoot a lot of seniors, of course. But what if I want to shoot? A family? Did have a family I don't want to be. I don't want to have every set only designed for a newborn baby where it's four feet wide. And then I can't house a family and say, Well, if you want to put a family, I'm sorry. No, my backgrounds worked for that. So as you can see here, 10 feet wide, roughly 10 feet tall and what I'd like to do pay attention to the floor. Even though this floor is very similar, the color of the floor that is that it's sitting on. I build these stage floors. I'm basically a stage floor, and what that allows me to do is just keep everything contained. It keeps everything contained in that by 10 area and doesn't let it spill off. And next thing you never must set went from 10 by 10 to by 12. 10 by 14. And I've got crap everywhere. Doesn't work that way. So everything is based on a floor. I'm gonna show you how build these floors and how big these walls in just a minute. You just how easy that you don't have to be a highly skilled carpenter to be able to do this stuff. Nor do you have tow higher. Ah, highly skilled carpentry. Either Probably have someone in your family that could do this. If you're not Bob the builder storage areas, I'm really, really big on storage areas. When I'm working with a senior, I can walk right over to my storage area and just pull a couple things off as I need him. Go throw him in the picture when I'm done, take him back. Throwing back up there. Your storage doesn't have to be beautiful, and that's one thing that I had to have a small, small argument my wife about She wanted to get this storage that was really beautiful and look beautiful. It looks really pretty. I was like, Hey, listen, let's just go simple. It just needs to do its job. It needs to be slim, easy. And then this way, if we don't like it in three or four years, I can do something else with. I can tear it apart because I put it all together with screws. That way, if you ever need to dismantle it, don't use nails. You Scrooge drywall screws pull all the screws out and you've got all your lumber left to build another set. Who knows? So always build everything was screws. If you're doing it first set two twos. All this little stuff. Everything's gotta space. Everything is got a place and a purpose. These they're just like little racks, little curtain rods and then on the back of the door. I've got the little thing when you put your shoes in, so I'm using things for what they're probably not supposed to be used for. But it's getting the job done. Same thing with little blankets and things frame that out with, uh, took a two before split it in half and built these little racks that I just throw the blankets over top of instead of going and buying something that's really expensive, you don't have to. It's not about seeing how much money you can spend, right. So take a look if you're gonna build a set, This is the easiest way that I've found to do it. And trust me, I've tried it six different ways from Sunday and I'm gonna always try and establish and use the easiest way. So basically, you start with a bottom plate and you put your two by fours normally about two foot to foot on center. When you're done with that, you shoot it with plywood and you've got a base. You've got something to work with. If you just hang a background up in the middle of the room when you walk by it, the wind will get it, you know, and moves it back and forth, and you don't want to deal with all that. So I built everything just like that. What this allows me to do cause I can cheat the other side of it, and now I've got two sets that I can work off. So my area in the studio is It's a big, long rectangle, but I've got built these walls down through the middle on both sides so that I can use both sides of it, obviously. And this is the floor. Build the floor of the same way, and I covered the floor with USB, which is just basically a plywood. The cheapest plywood. They have only 7/16 of an inch thick. That way, people can stand on their feet. Don't fall through it. You know, like we said yesterday, that would be very embarrassing. And one of your clients coming fell through your set. That makes for an awkward to combination. Another thing. I want to point out this particular set right here. Look at how the background goes back behind the floor. Think about this. If you have a background or set and you're building it, it has to lay perfectly against the floor. If your floors not level, it's going to be higher on one side or lower. So with this, it just takes all the guesswork out of the way. I build this floor, you can pull the floor back just a little bit. Let's your background fall down behind and then push your floor back against it. So it allows for your background to go back behind and not have to worry about it being absolutely level. This is actually record old record labels. This isn't a background, but I don't want to worry about what it looks like where it meets the floor. So that's one way around it now. Another backdrop I had, and I get a lot of inspiration from stuff online when I walk into somewhere. When I walked in here, I'm looking around at different things, like they got some panels over here and, you know, I could throw some light behind those panels and I could make something like that work. My mind is always spending, and that's kind of a bad thing because it never really shuts off. And the hamsters up here just run in circles all day long all day. But I saw something in a magazine, and it was called an Austrian shade, and it was, Ah, window covering, and I really loved I watched in the cell. How the light was was hating it. And I said, You know what? I love to do something like that, my studio. But I can't pay $249 for a Austrian shade. Plus, it's only three feet wide. I need one that's 10 feet wide. So what did I do? We went to. There's a place in town that sells fabric. Women got some sheer fabric, and I found the lady to make Austrian shades for me, for pennies on the dollar. This lady is a great seamstress. I showed her the picture of what I wanted and she said, Consider it done. She said, I got you No problem. Go back to pick it up. And that's exactly what I wanted. Take a look at this next image. This is pink, obviously, and this is the white, the amount of the amount of shadowing that goes on there, depending on how your lights air hitting it. It's absolutely beautiful. And that's something that that's created by going and buying some sheer fabric, showing someone that does know how to do it and paying them a fair price to do it. No, I didn't find the most expensive seamstress in town either. I had to do some research on that Found a lady. I went to this Teoh, the place that sells all the fabric. And I said, Listen, uh, between you and I here, I can't really afford. Probably have someone here, do it. But do you have anyone you could recommend? That might would do this on the side and she said, Oh, honey, I've got the perfect lady said she's going. Her husband has cancer right now, and she needs anything. She confined to keep her mind off of it and to make some extra money. I said, Wasn't I am her guy Name your number, called her. We worked out a deal and it's awesome. Now I've got her actually making stuff for other photographers, so I helped build her business on the side. She does all kinds of upholstery for us now. She's like my right hand lady, love her to death lover. So ideas like that you can do with fabric. It's not always about having to go and buy a background. You know, backgrounds can be expensive, so think of ways to be multipurpose. Like I said, this next slide here on the left hand side. Those were just window sheers. But they work perfectly for what I need. Now look at this. This argyle painted area here we had brick in the studio. I don't like brick, but I get tired of brick. Don't break anymore. I want something else. I could cover it with a background. Or I could go buy some white paint and some blue paint. Mark this all all take it off, paint it. And now, by painting an avatar blue and photo shop is very, very easy to manipulate the color like the blue. You can change it whatever color. So like right now, if I'm in this green shirt that I have on, I can make it a hue of green. I go in, click on a select all the blue and use your color slider slide into whatever color you won't and what you're doing. So Avatar Blue. I don't know if that's actually a color. If you go to Home Depot or Lowe's, they're gonna probably don't know what you're talking about. But get something close to that photo shop will identify with it pretty easily. So for easy Photoshopped manipulation that is what I love to use their and again all you do there is we we measured out. We cut a little diamond out of a piece of cardboard and stick it up, paint the inside, stick it up, paint the inside, stick it up. It's not really that hard, cause it doesn't have to be perfect in my world. Luckily, things don't have to be perfect, because if they did, I would suck at it. Um, same thing here. This is right. This this next one is right beside that is dry brushed. If you want that whitewash, look on any furniture or anything. Don't dip your paint, paint brush in there and start painting deeper paintbrush in there and then take a piece of cardboard or something besides you and the back and forth on it a few times to get a lot of the excess paint off there and then just dry, brush it on their back and forth, back and forth. Just hit it just a little bit and a little bit of the pain and get on it and then just keep going with that. That way, it's not completely white. A little bit will bleed back through. So you got to dry that brush out a good bit to be able to make that work. This right here works really, really, really well for my family's. I do a lot of family stuff on here and a lot of head shots for my seniors when they come in the floor on it. I mean, I forgot to get a picture of the floor. It's a 10 by 10 floor, but I went to Lowe's and about whitewashed paneling. So paneling that would go old school Palin she would put up in your in your house. Um, you know, some people still have it. I had it when I was a kid because my grand parents realized that was something I couldn't tear up very easily. So they put paneling, love paling up. So I lived a very dark and gloomy uh, you know, childhood growing up with oak panelling. It was very exciting. Anyways, what I have is a whitewash paneling. It comes in four bodies sheets. I put that down and what that does is access a nice reflector coming up in other eyes, and it matches and goes perfectly with this. So I've got a brick wall. I bought a gallon of paint. Those $12 about two sheets actually had to buy three, because you have to waste one of them to get a two foot stripping on the side. So about three pieces of that the three pieces of that stuff was $13 apiece, and I got a $12 gallon of paint. I can roll with that for a good while. And when I'm done with it, painted another color paint a design on it. Maybe you higher not hire, but you commission your local high school and you say, Listen, I've got some projects that need to be done. Contact the art teacher. Tell them what you're doing. Tell him what you're all about. Telling you would love to borrow his students as an art project. And maybe they can come to your studio and paint different various projects for you. That could happen as well. You know, that could happen as well. Now, if you are gonna buy backgrounds, I'm a big proponent of that as well, because sometimes it is cheaper to buy it than it is to build it. And even me, I have a hard time coming to terms with that because I'm like, No, I can make it, but it's like it's like being a plumber. You know, if you're no good with plumbing and your toilet is broken, don't let your husband fix it. Just go ahead and go behind his back like he would anyways call the plumber and get it six, because two things are gonna happen. Number one, it's gonna take him three or four weeks to get around it. And then number two is still not gonna be quite right. So it's like fun and your strengths and your weaknesses. You go with what you're good at, you let someone else do what you're not good at, but this next one here with with a roller system, I found myself getting really, really aggravated and really lazy because it took a lot of effort toe hang a background up and get it all looking nice and neat. And man, I don't feel like changing out. I'm just just rock n roll. This next one will be fine. But one thing one thing that's important about this is obviously yes, this is an investment. It is an investment. But this is something that man, this thing will outlast me. And my daughter can have it one day And sheikhoun, I don't know if she'll probably sell it at a yard sale or something. I don't know. Who knows? Let's check out this next video, and I'm gonna point out some key points in here that will save you a lot of times. Should you ever be interested in the system such as this? All right, guys, I finally made the decision. I used to be one of those that would hang backgrounds up, take him down, hanging another one, take him down. And what I found was found myself being lazy. Like, you know what, not messing with all that. I'm gonna shoot on this background that I got hanging up and I'll just do everything on this one. Well, that is what a loser would do. Somebody doesn't want to be lazy. Don't be lazy. Do what I did. Check it out. Danny. Danny Manufacturing. They've got it figured out. Not only did they haven't figured out with the back drops below the freedom cloth, you can throw that thing in a duffel bag. Take it on location. Pull it out, throw it out and it's not even wrinkled up. I'm trying to figure out how they can make me some shirts out of that stuff, but I guess I'd look kind of weird wearing a background of the shirt. But anyways, most of my areas in the studio I based him off of a 10 by 10 square and even inside, I've got, like, 25 26 different sets inside. So check this out. Here's the backdrop here, but I am tired of this backdrop, and I want to really impress my client and say, You know what I've got behind this backdrop. I've got a really cool whitewashed wall that would look really, really need So let's just do this right here. My clients are like, Oh, my gosh, look at that. That's so cool. So it rolls all the way up and now behind this one, this is my actual wall. This isn't a backdrop, but we turned it into a backdrop. So now I've got this one here. And then let's just say that little Susie I can say, Oh my gosh, you know what? I've got something great. That is going to go with that pink and white outfit that you have. So what I want you to do is go grab your pink and white outfit, and then I'll have the lighting and everything set up for you so that when you come back, we'll be ready to roll. And then whenever I say you know what, I like this, too. But tell what would look really really good is the one where you have those green tone. If you will bring those green tones back out here and with the flip of a button, Denny has hooked us up here and giving us the tools that we need. You get that, you get the gist of it. That's something that I thought, all right, that's a waste of money completely. But it's not a waste of money. Now moving on Craigslist Craigslist is a great place to find props for free now Piano a piano. I would definitely suggest getting of your closest friends that have muscles and get a six pack of water or something and treat them to that because moving a piano is not that easy. However, you can find an abundance of free items such as this on Craigslist in your own area. Just go to Craigslist, go to the free section and you'll probably be amazed at what you can find in there. A lot of stuff you don't want, which is what people are giving it away for free. But I brought this to the studio, and I'll tell you the proper aging for a piano. You can take a beautiful piano and you can make it age perfectly by leaving it out in the rain for 3.5 months. 3. months. Leave it out in the weather. Of course. In Seattle, here might be maybe a week as much rain as they get. But that's proper aging. So what happens is had had someone come into the studio and I saw this old piano. They're like, Wait a minute, man. I've got a piano. You Are you looking for another one? Are you looking for? I got, like, four pianos now. I don't know what to do with because people I don't even bring it to you just to get rid of it. Something. Bring it on, man. Why not? So we use this 11 year for Christmas, We actually spray painted it gold, which I don't know why I did that, but I did. And it worked perfect for Christmas pictures. And then I was like, You know what? I've got this goal got this background that go with it for maybe a year and when I'm done with it painted and I might put it outside. So I'll show you what I've done to repurpose this piano in another area here in just a little bit now. I loved shooting on an exterior wall that had crackled paint, but that's so hard to replicate. It's really hard to replicate that crackled paint look without paying, ah, faux finish or a lot of money to do it. Well, I saw this wall that I loved, and then my heart was getting broken because they were going to tear this house down. So this is what used to be and then on the left. So what happened when I was out for lunch one day and rode by and I saw this house running on the shooting was like, No, no, no, no, no run over there and this guy's on the bulldozer and he takes his earphones like, what is this spiky haired freak? Won't like what I said, sir, Before you turn this house down, is there any way that I could bring my soul's over here and just get a portion of this? He's like, Son, you got about 15 minutes and his whole house is gonna be going ran, Got my stuff. I just hear the whole wall law and get it out of the way. And then I took it off piece by piece by piece, nail by nail by now brought it back to the studio, and I built a 10 by 10 wall and I covered it with that old side in that old wooden siding, and it looks awesome. It looks awesome. Now, same type of thing was gonna read it happen at another place. I saw an old fellow that his barn was was falling down, and I said, Sir, what do you do with that barn like? Well, probably just gonna let nature take care of it. And I said, Well, you know what if I just kind of help, you know, kick it over a little bit, make it fall. So It's not a hazard to anyone, and then I'll gladly come over and help dismantle it a little bit. Only thing Onassis's let me have all the old rusted 10. That's really not you. It's not really usable for anything. But, you know, just maybe I'll just take some of that. He said, I don't care whatever. Luckily, he was nice enough to say that. Now, if you tell them that you're gonna be using it for photography, they're gonna want to charge you. So don't ever tell them what you're using it for. Just tell him you're a recycler or something that we don't lie because I am recycling. I'm up cycling, but this metal roofing 10 0 by the way, I found this couch right here, $ at the thrift store. 28 bucks and it it lays down into a bed. So I've taken actually quite a few naps on there when I've had a really bad headache at the studio food for thought. But yeah, roof in tennis multipurpose. Look in the background there. I mean, it matches girls that have dark hair, and then people with blond hair pulls them off the background a little bit newspaper. I saw this in a magazine. Like, what can I do that I contacted? Uh, I've got a cousin that works for the newspaper. Said, Hey, save me a few newspapers every night and just kind of just hold on to him for me. No problem. So the ones that are no good he throat threw him in a big being comes back what I did with this wall, that was instead of shooting with the plywood, I use sheet rock. I didn't have to finish it. And I just took a staple gun, had an intern cut out all the clippings, make sure there was no bad titles because you don't want to have a close up image of someone. And it says, you know, serial rapists found, You know, Saturday, you don't want that. So get rid of all the titles or I did. And then I don't know it's cool and see how someone were different colors. If you want him toe age, leave them out in the sun for about three days. They'll turn this like, ugly yellow plaque color. Or you can pour tea bag like 40 all over him and they'll get like a brownish color. You can wrinkle them up. You can spray paint him even whatever Corrugated. 10 guys may have seen this shoes before. You go to your hardware store and get these sheets of corrugated 10 like roofing tonight and I've got mine in like, a circular fashion like 1/2 circle. I built a little frame back behind it, screwed it to it, and I love how the light hits it. The light hits it in different ways, creates a shadow inside, creates a highlight side love using this. I use that a lot with with sports, things, all sorts things. Now there's a website I'm gonna give you. But be careful when you take this in for this. Next one is called Shop Wild things dot com. Yeah, be real careful when you typed out in the wild things that get you sometimes but shop wild things dot com. That's where I got crystal curtains and they come in four foot sections and I want to think they're like, 10 or 12 feet long. There really, really long getting in all different colors, all different sizes, and it's just something fun that I that I can hang up. I can pull it to the side when I'm not using it, I can let it go when I want to use it. Get you girls in their wrap him up. You guys probably gonna be photographing the whole lot with the crystal curtain. That's probably not gonna be a good look. Um, and and from there moved forward because I got so many ideas of things. And this isn't just ideas that I picked off line like, Oh, I think this will be a good idea. Try this and see if it works. This is in my studio. Every single one of these is mine. It's stuff that I've built and then I use, So I know it works, and I know it's cheap to produce it. So I'm not blowing a bunch of smoke for you here. Old doors. You can go almost anywhere and find old doors. What I do is I go to old houses that look like they're falling apart, and I try and find out who owns them, see what they're gonna do with It seemed to let me have the doors. Sometimes I think I'm an idiot. So when they do. We have a local store is called a habitat, restore its habitat for humanity. They have a restore where people can donate items and then they resell them for money. So I go to the habitat restore, and they have all kinds of doors and Aiken by these doors for 15 $20 apiece. And I brought all these doors back, and I put them together in like a fan shaped painting with metallic with metallic paint. And now I've got something that's really cool can match up color harmonies. So if a girl has address that will match that, that's where we go. It's easy. It works when I'm tired of that color blue campaign in another color, Aiken. Stick something on it. I can do whatever, so there's no wrong or white right way to do it. Now Mawr of these doors, these air in their original state. I love putting something this kind of old and weathered with something really, really pretty. It's kind of like my relationship with my wife, old and weathered. She's very, very pretty. So we get a lot of looks when we go out or she does. She's like what are you doing? You must be blind, but yeah, I love that. Put the chandelier with something old is part of my brand, Remember? I said, eclectic elegance. So it's like something that doesn't fit was something that is really, really pretty. So you take something really, really pretty. Put it somewhere that it doesn't belong on that becomes part of my brand. That's what I really, really enjoy. This is how I hope those things together. It's like a little 90 degree bracket, and I screw it into the side of one of the doors and then screw down into the end of the top of the other door. So they're free standing so you can pull them off the wall. And you can use both sides of him if you wanted to. And then for furniture, I have to go by pretty silver couch. Got at a thrift store by you by, you know, chair by your own couch and old stool. Some suitcases, whatever. Bicycle Don't know. Find something. Throw it in there and you've got a really, really cool set there. Moving forward. Most of my seniors so funny. I have no clue what a record is they walk in and they see these and they say, Oh, my gosh, what are these, like big black CDs or something? They don't even know what a laser disc is. They don't know. All they know is like a like an MP three. They barely know what a CD is anymore, any throughout a cassette tape. Blow their mind, for sure. But it works out really well for me because the thrift store that I get on my things from actually rent the building to them. So when I bought the commercial spaces, this is nothing. When I bought my commercial spaces, that was four buildings all connected and by the firewall in between all of them. So they were separate parcels. But when I was able to do is my. My payment only went up $300 from running it toe, actually buying all of them because I'll sub leased the other spaces to other people. So we've started becoming good business decision makers. Now the thrift store is right next door to doors during now, when you're running a high end studio, there is no better place to put your studio than next to a thrift store. Not a good decision there, but again, None of my clients were come from my town. So I go to the first store all the time and they say, Blair, listen, we got some stuff out back for you. So they've learned stuff that no one wants. They save it for me to look through, pilfer through on what I don't want to throw away. There's a big tub of records and they said, Blair, no one's gonna buy these records. Do you want these? And I was like, Oh, man, are you crazy? Yes. So I take these records and I started Just tear them apart and I cut the took the actual record covers and I just started stapling onto the wall randomly, just all over the wall. There's, Ah, there's all source of artists in here that people don't even know. Like kids. They don't know who Michael Jackson is. Chuck Ngoni. They have no clue. So anyways, take those records. I throw him out on the floor. I didn't grow him down. I did at first, but don't do that because what'll happen is is a girl who get up there with their high heels and she'll snap one of them. And then you have to dig that. You have to dig the glue up and it's a mess. I just throw em all down so they move around. So I tell my client, Look, when you step up here, be careful cause they will move on you and it's a great set. Great said. I love it's one of my favorites to use when I have the girl come in. That's not the real frilly, real pretty, like I want everything pregnant proper. She's more of one of those kids that her mom's like, Yeah, I don't know what has gotten into her, but she is all in this rock and roll stuff. Gosh, then I can relate to her And I can say, you know what I like rock n roll to And I got just the type of stuff for you. So you can see through the use of just some of these sets that I showed you so far is so multi purposed if I rely on one particular thing. Matter of fact, uh, my granddad told me this. If you rely on Lee, one thing it's likely to turn out the disappointment, and that's so true. If you put all your eggs in one basket, it's probably gonna disappoint you at some point. So that's a quote that I love to live by, laying people, laying those girls down on the floor, putting their legs up against the wall. It just opened up a new animal for me. Love it, love it for extra credit. I would ask, Who who knows who that guys in the middle there. But I'm not going to paper. You get seamless paper. I check this out. Follow me here on this one. Go go to your hardware store, get a role of four foot tall paper like Kraft paper. It's basically like flooring that she would stuff you would roll out if you were having construction done at your home. It's just like it's kind of like what a paper bag would be made out of. You get from the grocery store, roll that paper out, and as you roll it out, just start like crinkling it together as you're going, crinkling it all together and staple it as you're going crinkling it and stay planet and do like three or four rows of it. And then look at what just paper can create. Look at that backdrop right there, out of paper. Look at the dimension that that's in there. And if you cross light it Oh, man, it is awesome. So what I did is I took three strips of this. It's four foot wide, so I took three strips, hung it up sideways, staple it to the wall, man. It made an awesome background and it was a roll of paper, I think the roll of paper. It might have been 18 books, and I had a ton of paper leftover. Now what I do when I'm done with this is actually take spray paint and going to all kinds of random spray paint colors and just start spraying it all over the place. Different places. Then I use that for a little while, and when I'm done with it, I'll cut it up into strips or tear it up in the strips, and that will become Firestarter from outdoor fireplace. So it's multi purpose, right? I'm giving back, giving that. A lot of people really, really, really went crazy whenever they first saw us doing this one and this is something that is easy to do if you do it the right way. Just like most things. What if you take like this sofa on the left? This was a sofa that my grandmother would have had years and years ago. It was a gosh awful thing. I mean, back in the day, it was really nice, but it's like 38 feet long. I don't know what happened. Catches back then used to be so long, but you can paint this stuff. You can use household paint to paint furniture, like how I would never have thought that was possible. But what we learned was, as you have to mix in an ingredient called fabric medium, and it is, basically, it allows the paint to create and hold elasticity so that when you sit on it, the paint doesn't crack. It allows it to bend and fold and pull apart. So when you're doing this, you want to go about three parts. Paint toe, one part fabric medium, and you could get fabric medium and a local craft store hobby, hobby store like hobby lobby. They'll have it in there, or it might just be easier to order online, but it's called fabric medium. And I don't use any specific brand. Any of it is pretty much all in one. The same. Like this one here on the right. This was a piece that I ran across at a sale. Adam, I'm not in a portion shop. Put a storage unit. It wasn't opposed to shop. That's right. This guy had a sign out front said, you know, massive sale today rolled in because I'm always looking for stuff. And I'm like, let me see what you got. He had this thing, and, uh, I found it on the Internet. It retails for $4500. I bought it for 75 books. Being in the right place right time. I guess someone dropped it off. Never came to pick it up there, lost my game. So about having $75 invested. And I was like, You know what? After I used it for a while, it was like brown and red. But after we used it for a while list. Let's go with it. We painted. It works perfect. Thats pink couch. I got inspired by the rock star Cash and I say I was paying another one peak and gold, same type of thing. It just adds a little splash of color in their little splash of color breaks up the monotony of being plain. I think the cushions from that rock star theme couch turn the cushions up. And now I've got a backdrop to use. So being being handy, ingenuity and thinking outside of your our little box that we put ourselves in and I can use this white colored furniture that we just painted and when I'm done with it, that's something else. Or give it away. Have very little invested in it. Thrift stores could be your go to places, restores. That's That's where I go when I'm looking for props. That's absolutely where I go.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Senior Posing Guide
Blair Phillips Discounts

Ratings and Reviews

David - Muse 10
 

As an experienced photographer myself, this class was both helpful and inspirational…we're never too experienced to learn from someone. Blair is really a lot of fun to watch and listen to. He has a way of making things fun with his high energy and dry sense of humor. To be completely honest in my review of this class, the lighting and posing sections, while VERY good, have been done over and over again by lots of photographers and didn't offer much in the way of new ideas. The real value was in the customer service and marketing techniques presented here. Blair's use of video as a marketing and communication tool with his clients is very unique and sparked TONS of ideas I would like to implement in my studio. His simple pricing structure and the way he presents it to his clients is also unique and has helped me rethink some of my own methods. "That being said" (Blair should appreciate that phrase) this class is totally worth the price and will continue to be a good reference for me. Some photographers are excellent at their craft but are dry teachers; others are great teachers but their "real-life" work doesn't live up to their classroom presentations. Blair is the real deal and makes this class very exciting.

a Creativelive Student
 

Blair is great. This class is packed full of great info and is a genuine good hearted person.. Really like his approach with high school seniors. I recommend it.

Student Work

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