DIY Project: Wood Table For Product Photography
Apr 30, 2014
Laya Gerlock
Laya Gerlock is a Portrait and Product photographer based in the Philippines. His passion is teaching and sharing his knowledge in Photograpy and has been doing this for 6 years.
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Last month I’ve been really fascinated with food photography and product shots with wood table or wood texture in the background. Ever since I’ve been planning to try and make my own. Eventually I stopped procrastinating and just started doing it. This is my first prototype and it works pretty well, tough I am not promising to improve on future version.
I have seen other people doing back to back wood planks but I also wanted a plain wood table, so I went with one side being the wood plank and the other side plain wood.
After some sanding it was time to wood glue the two sides together
I wanted to try it out before I varnished and painted them because I really liked the texture and the color of it even if it was plain.
I tried looking for grey varnish here in the Philippines but couldn’t find any so I just thought of using a really dark varnish and white paint for the sides. (Planning to make a grey one in the future using grey water based paint that is diluted)
Now to test it out inside the studio:
Varnished
Painted
This is just my first try and still planning to make more because it’s pretty easy to do and is a really great background for product/food photography shots. The one thing I learned about this is you should test out the paint and varnish before applying it to the final product. It took me 2 days to do this project because of the time to wait for the wood glue and the varnish and paint to dry but all worth it.
Laya Gerlock
Laya Gerlock is a Portrait and Product photographer based in the Philippines. His passion is teaching and sharing his knowledge in Photograpy and has been doing this for 6 years.
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16 responses to “DIY Project: Wood Table For Product Photography”
using your hard wood flor works as well as i did for this shot, http://jerphotography.vsco.co/media/535fee387167088e2a00098d
:)
I really like the planks before paint… If I do something similar I think I’d have to leave unpainted.
I think I would just make a box with 6 different textures/colours. That way you will have a multitude of options rather than just 2.
Lomoloco,
Yes, but then you would have to store a big box when it was not in use.
Would it not be easier to make 3 sets of boards? By treating both sides, that would give you 6 surfaces. Then you could stack them for storage much easier. (Or use them for book shelves!)
Terry Thomas Photos
Atlanta, Georgia USA
Neat idea.
Side note though, does DIY Photography have any copy-editors? The amount of spelling/grammar errors I see in articles is much more frequent than most sites I visit.
Hi Eric,
that would be my fault entirely :)
I don’t say it in any way to put down the articles or the website, but I work at a newspaper and on my own blog and they are just pet peeves of mine. I think at least doing a quick second read-through really improves the quality of content.
Thanks Eric. looking for a person to do proofing…. If you know anyone please send them this way.
I actually do know an excellent copy editor, I’ll pass along the information to her.
appreciate it!
Great little article. I had a go at it this past weekend. Here’s the results: https://www.flickr.com/photos/94050219@N02/sets/72157644119601697/
great stuff!
Thank you.
Hmmm… your girlfriend’s cell phone sure looks a lot like a Nikon camera!
BTW, a very nice article. Here in the US, I buy inexpensive fence boards at big box hardware stores such as Lowe’s and Home Depot. These fence boards are known as “rough cut” lumber which means the face of the wood is not smooth and flat but has texture – something we often like in the background of food and product photography. If it is too rough it can easily be sanded.
Another source of cheap wood are companies that accept pallets of goods. Often the pallets are not wanted, so just ask. Especially useful are ones that have been sitting out in the weather for a year or more as they really have interesting textures.
I cut boards so they will be four feet long. This way they will fit into the back seat of my car when I need to go shoot food on location.
Hi! Where were you able to buy wood planks? I know there’s Wilcon and Home Depot for that but I’m hesitant to check it out because it might be a bit too pricey for me. (Especially since I have yet to buy paint.) If it has to be private, email me. :) Thanks!