I happen to have a fairly ugly kitchen. My house near Woodinville was built in the mid 1980s; and the kitchen has been redone once but with boring and cheap faux oak brown cupboards. Yuck. Luckily, after two kitchen fires and a kitchen flood, I finally have an excuse to not only stop cooking and eat takeout from restaurants way more often, but also to renovate my kitchen finally. A few months from now, I will finally have the white kitchen of my dreams.
Meanwhile, I film a lot of videos for Woodinville Wine Blog and for my other blogs, and decided to invest in some nice photography backdrops to sit behind me (rather than my ugly yellow home office wall). I don’t use digital backdrops like some people do on Zoom; I prefer cloth and vinyl photography backdrops. Besides using them for videos, I’ve had lots of fun parties in the past (pre-Covid) where friends came over to dress in festive holiday costumes, don obnoxious props and get their pictures taken in front of holiday backdrops.
Take a look at some of the kitchen backdrops I’ve purchased and use, and some of the other photography backdrops I’m thinking of adding to my collection.
(Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, we will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you)
I was in a hurry to put up this Kate Christmas Kitchen backdrop so it’s a bit wrinkly. I needed to steam the fabric with my steamer before using it. The wrinkles do disappear if you hang the backdrop for a few days, but you have to pull it tight and fasten it securely to your backdrop holder. Note that the dishes in the background look orange compared to my red Christmas shirt and red lipstick.
If you take the time to steam out the wrinkles, this white kitchen backdrop looks quite unobtrusive in the background.
I use 10×10 backdrops whenever possible. They’re much taller than I need for my indoor home video studio; but useful if we’re going outdoors for photo shoots. You really need yours as wide as possible if there are going to be other people in the photo with you. A 7×5 really only has room for two people before the sides of your wall start showing. I like the taller backdrops for in-person photo shoots so my guests/subjects can stand on the backdrop so the image continues gracefully beneath them.
Kate 7×5 Christmas Kitchen Backdrop – Microfiber
Kate 8×8 White Kitchen Photography Backdrop
Christmas Interior Room 7×5 Photography Backdrop
Jen uses this inexpensive 7×5 Modern Kitchen Backdrop in her videos, and it looks so real!
Here’s a cream colored kitchen if you like the looks of that better. It comes in several different sizes.
I wish my real-life kitchen looked like this nice aqua kitchen photography backdrop!
Dark Modern Kitchen Photography Backdrop 7×5
Remember that most of these backdrops come via air-mail from China, so they take 3-4 weeks to arrive. Plan ahead and order them weeks before you anticipate needing them.
Be aware that each backdrop might look different with your lighting setup. Adjust your lighting and take test shots before using a new backdrop.
This Christmas backdrop is actually quite vibrant depending on the lighting and flash you choose to use or not. I actually needed to put some color filter attachments on my Neewer ring light before filming this video, to warm up the photo and my skin tone (I’d already set the webcam’s white balance and colors the way I usually do), but I was in a hurry to start a live video.
This is the first photography backdrop stand I bought, a ten foot stand. The first time or two I put it together, it was really difficult, frustrating and I cried a lot. But I gradually got the hang of it, and nowadays I can carry it outside or into another room, whip it together quickly, and break it down super fast after using it for a photo shoot. It’s stable and sturdy and really helps hold the backdrops straight so they don’t look wrinkled in photo shoots.
However, the large tripod feet make it take up a lot of room in my tiny home office, so I have since switched to a clothesline system (Which does make my backdrops tend to look wrinkled). I’m tempted to get myself this smaller-footprint 10 foot backdrop holder that won’t take up so much room in the corners of my home office studio.
For video shoots with just one person (usually me!) I use this narrower and smaller T-shape photography backdrop stand. It only works with the small 7×5 foot backdrops.
My favorite color is aqua/teal/turquoise so here’s the last kitchen photography backdrop I’m tempted to add to my arsenal!
Just so you know, these backdrops take up a lot of storage room. They’re bulky and difficult to fold into Sterilite storage tubs, and the more you fold them, the more wrinkles they get. I’m currently trying to figure out a way to roll them over a giant dowel or a closet rack to keep them nice in between uses in my video studio.
What do you use for a photography backdrop in your home? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
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-Carrie
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