Photographing dolls

Today I set up a little photo studio in our spare room. I have been thinking about doing this for a while and I have been collecting the bits and pieces needed to do it for the last couple of months.

I bought a bunch of cheap quilter's cottons to use as backdrops and put a hem in each of them. The curtain rod is hanging on two hooks that you buy to hold the center of really long curtain rods (for drapes). It holds the rod away from the wall about 4". (Cost about $15 for everything) The lights are the cheap clamp on kind and I put daylight bulbs in them (think I paid about $8 each and the lightbulbs were a couple of bucks) My husband built me the little stands to put them on out of 2x2 and 1x2 wood (cost me $5). I had the table, LOL, but I did buy a tripod - most expensive part - cost me $25. So - I have a little over $60 in this. I took a couple of test photos and I don't have the shadows I was getting when I took the pictures on my kitchen table - so I think this will work well. I do think I will need one color background though as I tried a photo with two different colors and it looked like one piece of cloth. I will also have to play around with the angle of lights. I might need an overhead light but I have extra flourescent shop lights and there is a drop ceiling in this room so it will be easy to test it out. But I'm off to a good start! Of course if my daughter ever decides to move back home I'm going to be in trouble!