A few years ago, I stood alone at a table in a cafe thinking about nothing in particular and contemplating on the bottle of beer that stood in front of me. As I sat in the far side of the bar room, I could see and observe all the other people there. Having nothing else to do, I began imagining what each of them thought, based on their appearance and the drink they were enjoying. I wondered who all those people were and so I started to give personas to each of them. That way, in my head, “The Table Persona” series of portraits was born and with it a series of small problems was born too.
I associated a color with each persona and wanted that specific color to be painted on the wall behind it. Obviously, the bar owner would not let me paint his walls over and over again till I finished my project. I had to search for other methods.
I decided to build some fake walls in my studio and I went to a local home improvement store to search for stuff from which I could build it.
After doing some math, I decided to buy a cheap wooden floor, gypsum boards, some wallpaper and the cheapest wallpaper glue. I bought the cheapest one, to make sure that the wallpaper will not stick well to the drywall and can be easily removed and replaced for the following shoot.
Back in the studio, I laid the floor and applied a dark stain on it. I made two wooden frames, both representing a corner of a room, and screwed my gypsum boards on that frames. If you have ever worked with amateur models you know that things do not always go according to plan. Having two sets at my disposal, if one shoot got delayed I would not had been stuck and could move on with the next shoot.
As I went through the necessary shoots, it became clear that the gypsum boards solution was not ideal. The whole structure was very heavy and hard to move around. The photos however turned out fine.
A few months later, when I was reading Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” I started picturing a scene inspired by the novel and once again I found myself without a proper location for the shoot. I decided to recycle the two corners used when I shot “The Table Person, by joining them together and make myself a room. I put a new wallpaper, I attached a fake door which was actually a real door screwed to the gypsum board. Once again the picture turned out fine but at this point it was clear to me that choosing gypsum boards for my fake walls, was a mistake. The whole thing got way too heavy and it became impractical to be used
After I made this photo I discarded my gypsum boards fake walls and did little research.
I know I should have done this from the very beginning but you know… I’m a man. I don’t read the instructions.
I found out about the stage flats used in theater plays and decided to give it a go. The stage flats are basically huge canvases mounted on accordingly huge chassis. Building a stage flat turned out to be considerably cheaper than a wallpapered gypsum board.
For my next project, the one that I’m working on now I builded a larger set made from stage flats. I used 4x4cm wooden battens for the chassis. I tried with different widths and found that 4x4cm is the ideal size.
I made the chassis using half-lap joints. If you are not familiar with woodworking, a half-lap joint is made by removing half of the thickness of each batten. Check the link below for an example.
For the canvas, I used cheap linen canvas. The kind used to make bed sheets. For a 4×2,5m stage flat, I sewed two pieces of canvas together. I layed the canvas on the floor, placed the chassis over it and started stapling the canvas to it. I started with only one staple, in the middle of a long batten and then stretched the canvas on the opposite side, fixing it with another staple. I repeated the process with the canvas on the shorter battens. After the canvas was fixed with the 4 staples (one on the middle of each batten, I started stretching the canvas towards the corners, placing a staple every 2 cm.
After the canvas was stretched, I painted the stageflats, using regular wall paint
As I wanted a floral texture on the walls, using a stencil and some masking tape, I applied the texture with a darker shade wall paint
For the window I used a few wooden battens and made a frame with some blinds. For the door, I recycled the door I used in the photo inspired by Kafka’s Metamorphosis and painted it blue.
At the end, my set looked like this
After adding the props and bringing the models, I made the following photograph
It’s a photo about a painter that kills her inner demons only to find out that she has more and the killing was not done by her but by another inner demon.
The good thing about this set is that the canvas can be repainted many times before it will need to be replaced.
I already moved on to my next photo in this project and repainted the canvas for it.
I think I found the ideal way to build sets for my staged photographs. Building stage flats is easy, relatively cheap and fun. I would recommend you try it out and do some amazing photographs.
By Stefan Andronache
https://www.facebook.com/stefan.andronache
Website: Royalty Free Photos
Royalty Free Photos 