DIY Tips for Making Your Own Backgrounds

Does winter have you climbing the walls looking for something to do? Do you need some new or more interesting backgrounds for your food or product photography? Well then perhaps this DIY project is just the thing for you.

Each November I photograph a series of Italian cookies for our Italian travel company’s 12 Days of Cookies ad campaign. This year I wanted to photograph all the shots from overhead and didn’t want them to be all Christmas themed, so I knew I was going to need some new backgrounds. While searching the internet for ideas, I came upon this great video from The Bite Shot on making your own DIY backgrounds for food photography.

Of course, as the video points out, many companies are producing excellent backgrounds that you can order, but these can become expensive when you need various backgrounds. So creating some of your own backgrounds not only helps keep your expenses down, but it also permits you to have one of a kind backgrounds to the style, color, and textures that you want. And of course, doing it yourself helps to keep your expenses low. I developed ten different backgrounds over a weekend for less than $100. I found the experience to fun, as it permitted me to be creative in a different way from my usual photography.

While the video is focused on food photography, the backgrounds don’t have to be limited to food photography. I’ve used a couple of the backgrounds I created for the cookie shoot for other product photography.