Studio Tour

My photo studio is located in our third car garage. Here’s a peek at what it looked like as we were in the middle of building the wall.

Here’s the front door. Once upon a time I made a website for Middle Gray Photography. Now I am lazy and just put everything I do under natalme and post about it here.

The door and frame are antiques that actually came from the building that originally housed one of the first newspapers here in town. Or at least that’s what the antique dealer told me to convince me to buy them. Either way, it worked.

When you first walk in I have a craft table on the right side of the room. The table legs are old aluminum sawhorses. The great thing about this table is I can place the table top against the wall, and fold the sawhorses down if I need to have more space in the studio for shooting. I don’t anticipate having to do it often, but I like having the option. See the little desk? That’s Lily’s. It’s loaded with playdough, stickers, and glue sticks. She loves to hang out in there with me and craft. The door in this space will probably not stay. Its future home is still to be determined.

This is the opposite side of the room. (Yup, you can  see it’s still a garage.) The wood palette and antique windows are props I shoot with. The architect table is where I paint. I dabble a bit in oil painting, but honestly don’t spend a lot of time doing it right now. One day. It’s something I would like to spend more time learning about.

I paid $40 for this desk at a surplus sale. Steep price for me, but I madly love this piece.

Here’s a close up of the shelves. These hat boxes were originally red. I used three different shades of white spray paint, and an old labeler from the 70′s. I hope I don’t change what’s inside because I am pretty sure they don’t make that kind of label tape anymore.

This is the left side of the room. (The room is long and rectangular.) The left desk belongs to Mr. Wright. He makes his wood boxes in his shed, and finishes them off here. The desk on the right is my sewing desk. The crates hold my sewing notions and acrylic paints. The cool thing about this space is it is hidden when I am shooting. The paper backdrops roll down…

And voila! The craft clutter is hidden.

Here’s an up close shot of the photo display. (The tutorial is here.)

These old soda crates also hold crafting and sewing supplies in the same corner of the room.

When I am not shooting, these architect drawers hang out against the wall. When the paper comes down I just roll it to the back of the room.

And here’s one more look at the whole space. If you standing in the doorway, the left picture is looking left, and the right picture is looking to the right.

Here’s the thing about this space. It’s messy, it’s cluttered, it’s constantly changing. I realized though, it’s much easier to keep the inside of my house clean and organized, if I allow myself to have at least one room where it’s okay to be a mess. So I do. I let myself dump crap here, I don’t alway clean up right away after a project, and I even spray paint in here! (Though Mr. Wright wishes I’d knock it off with the spray paint.)

I love this space. In six months it will probably be completely different, and I love that it’s constantly changing to fit my needs.