I love natural light photography, but the winter months are pretty tough on someone who depends on the sun for portrait photography. Spend a few times trying to shoot portraits on a very dark and foggy day and you, too, will begin to feel the need for a nice studio setup. Since I put my studio together fairly recently, I thought I’d write up a Christmas gift guide for studio photographers. Just keep the fact that many photographers do on location shoots with their studio setups in mind, so portability is pretty important.


1. Reflectors – You know that piece of foamcore from the craft store your loved one has been sticking under your chin? It works just fine, but there is an option that looks a bit more professional. A reflector is a really nice, portable tool that can put highlights in eyes, function as fill lighting, or even become an emergency backdrop for head shots. I have three reflectors and use them constantly. This is one of the more reasonably priced tools for a studio, although I do recommend getting a reflector stand for added functionality and to help you avoid one of the phrases most feared by those who love a photographer, “Here. Hold this.” (The 40×60 inch DMKFoto Studio 5 in 1 Reflector Panel shown does not include the stand pictured. I have two of these and love this size.)


2. Lighting – I have tried a few different types of lighting equipment. My favorite option is AlienBees strobe lights. If I had it to do all over again, I would have skipped my continuous lighting package and speedlites and just gone straight to this awesome gear. You can get a one light Beginner Bee package* that will keep that photographer busy for months. Mastering one light is a great way to understand how lighting affects the way a person looks in a photo. With that said, I do still like my Flashpoint II Continuous lighting kit
when I’m working with babies. It is a soft, gentle light and they aren’t startled by a flash going off.

3. Receiver and transmitter – If your loved one wants strobes, he or she will start longing for a receiver and transmitter by the time the UPS truck backs out of the driveway. Having one less thing tethered to the camera and limiting the photographer’s ability to move around quickly and easily is beyond fabulous. I went with the CyberSync setup that was designed to work with AlienBees, but there is also the more expensive and widely recognized PocketWizard system.


4. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3
– Don’t tell anyone, but if I was stranded on a desert island and had to choose between Lightroom and Photoshop as my companion, I’d totally choose Lightroom. I adore this software. I pull out Photoshop for major editing jobs, to add texture layers, or stuff like that, but the majority of my work is done in Lightroom. Tethered capture is super easy with Lightroom, too. (Umm. Sorry for the techno-speak. Tethered capture is when the photographer presses the button on the camera, the light goes off and your photo appears right on the laptop.)


5. Portable Backdrop Stand – I have a few different permanent options for hanging backdrops in my studio, but I only shoot friends and family there. (That so doesn’t sound right. Photographers sound so angry if you happen upon us having a conversation, overhear us discussing what we did over the weekend and don’t know what we are talking about.) Anyway, for on location shoots, a backdrop stand is downright priceless. When you shoot in front of a backdrop when you are doing an on location shoot, it doesn’t matter what the actual location looks like. A backdrop stand makes it appear that the shoot was done in a professional studio instead of in a less than stellar spot. There are a ton of different options, but this one has pretty consistent ratings and comes with two backdrops so someone can just set it up and start shooting.

* I am not an affiliate of AlienBees – just a true fan. I get no compensation for mentioning or linking to their products. Other links on the page are to products on Amazon and I do have an affiliate relationship with Amazon.

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