DIY Flower Photography Backdrop; Massart Photography
Step by step instructions to create this flower wall without making the mistakes we did!
The past couple of years have been insane for us and we are so grateful for that but after a pretty serious price increase from 2015-2016, we are still booking at capacity and then some. Because we have such a hard time saying no, we always take on too much and I don’t handle stress very well ? I was barely keeping my head above water getting everyone their galleries on time and because of that, I could never take the time to work on projects like this one, and you all know that as photographers, we need to be creating non stop! Anyway, there is a point to this story I swear! After dealing with shingles (it sounds gross but it’s really just adult chicken pox!), caused by stress, I decided that we needed to make a change. My former career was as a teacher and the need to teach won’t leave me alone! In December of 2016, I decided that my focus for this year would be to MAKE time for creative projects AND for teaching so I’m beyond thrilled that so many want to hear about this drop because I get to start with both of those projects! Owning a business, as you all know, is all about taking chances; quitting a full time job with benefits is scary as hell but we, like many of you, did it. (If you haven’t, keep at it and it will happen!) We had been talking about adding a third person to our team for months (my husband Seth is full time too which keeps work life interesting to say the least ?) but even though our inbox was full of resumes, we couldn’t even make time to go through them! We were busy, you get the gist, I’ll move on! A couple of months ago, I posted about actually actively looking over prospects and fate brought us to a creature we aren’t even sure is real named Sari ? My goal was to have her take over all of our social media accounts, blogging and possibly even culling during wedding season. Well… come to find out, she is also a crafting queen! She has been making the most beautiful tie backs and they are flying off the shelves!(Off track again but if you want to check them out, join our de-stash group here).
We were planning Valentine’s Day minis and I told her that I wanted to do something really special, you know, work on my year goal! I had been dreaming of a flower wall for a while and that’s how this project began but we did make some mistakes along the way so hopefully, we can keep you from making the same!
- We used Bone seamless paper and you could use any color you want but I love this one as it’s timeless and matches our cream flokatis perfectly.
Link to bone drop by Savage here - Our flokati is cream and I absolutely love it! We bought it on RUGSUSA and if you keep an eye out, you can score coupons for up to 90%. I hear wonderful things about Luneberry as well but haven’t had a chance to check them out yet. If you have, I’d love to hear about them 🙂 I’m sure they would have a lot more custom color options!
- THIS IS A BIG ONE! I was under the impression that flower wholesalers would have wonderful deals on flowers in bulk ? Don’t get me wrong, you get what you pay for and their flowers were stunning and made out of silk but for our purposes, that quality is actually getting wasted since it gets blurred anyway! After sweet talking my way (don’t worry Seth, she was an elderly lady and you know I always bond with them lol) into a wholesale supply store, I spent a couple of hundred dollars for beautiful flowers only to realize that they covered about a quarter of what you see in the pullback photo! There is a Dollar Store about 3 miles from our studio ? lol so back out I went and bought every single flower they had in all shades of pink and cream and it cost me about $60.
- I whipped out the glue gun and got at it but after numerous burns, Sari and I learned that clear packing tape actually did the trick and our fingers were happy for it! We found that leaving an inch or two of stem was the easiest way to tape the flowers. Simply cut the stem, bend at the flower head so it’s at a 90 degree angle and tape the stem. Keep doing this for a few days and voila! lol For a special touch, we added some dried flowers (the green leafy things, I have no idea what they are but they smell delicious!). I love that they added some greenery but the color is still soft (I hate grass green!).Summary: It was very easy and shouldn’t have cost as much as it did if we only used seamless paper, dollar store flowers and tape! It did however, take a long time. Our wall is pretty small (it was photoshopped on the edges of a lot of the photos above) but I would love to add to it and use it for some mom and baby photos! We will see if Sari is up for it lol.If you don’t want to go through all of that, you can always just buy this specific drop through Baby Dream Backdrops! They have asked to purchase the design; how exciting! Are you wishing you didn’t read this whole thing now? lolOur lighting set up was very simple, a Paul C Buff Einstein and PLM (parabolic light modifier) camera left and I don’t think there was a reflector on the right even though it’s there in the pullback; I think we just put it there while cleaning!
I always switch off between 35mm Sigma Art and the 24-70 2.8 canon (they have a $150 rebate right now), so I’m not sure which I used where but I can tell you that I always use my 24-70 at 70 for a creamier background!
My editing workflow is forever changing and hopefully evolving and currently it includes some work in LR followed by PS. I switch it up a lot and tweak most of the time but I have recently started using Elena’s presets from Modern Market and they are amazing! (In all honesty, I love everything she sells). Once I have the photo where I want it, I take it into Photoshop for floor/wall fading, skin softening and background extensions as needed.
We hope you enjoyed this all in one tutorial, I’m SO excited to get to share knowledge and look forward to more posts! If you want to be notified, make sure to join our email list for photographers here! Should the next one be the cloud set up? I love it because it can be modified to be used so many ways!
Feel free to leave your comments and questions in the comments!xoxo,
Stay crafty peeps!
Audrey, Seth & Sari
