DIY Bokeh Backgrounds For Holiday Portraits Using Christmas Garland

Don’t pack up those Christmas decorations just yet! In this video, I'm gonna show you how can make some glorious bokeh ball DIY portrait backgrounds from your decorations. And if you don’t celebrate Christmas - no worries - you can hit up the Dollar Store and make these DIY photography backgrounds from scratch for about 10 bucks. This little DIY portrait backdrop trick is so simple and it's a great trick to have in your toolkit to jazz up your portrait backgrounds any time of the year.

All you need is some Christmas garland and some foam board. This is the week to get that garland on clearance after Christmas. I used three sheets of 20” x 30” foam board. These three happen to be black - but you can use white or any color for that matter. For those of you that have seen this video - you recognize that these are the famous Walmart Reflectors that you can get at Walmart or almost any Dollar Tree Store.

I used some black gaffers tape - which should be staple item in your studio toolkit - to tape the three boards together and then mounted them on a stand using a LumoPro reflector holder. You could also mount them using two stands and clamps like these - or design your own DIY PVC Holder like the ones in this video.

Once I had the now 30” tall by 60” wide background mounted - I started adding the garland. You could use any color garland. For this example I went with gold. I simply draped the garland in front of the board and stapled it at the top - you don’t need to go crazy glueing it in place unless you want it to be permanent. The staples remove easily and with no mess.

Some of you are thinking this background isn’t very tall - I'm shooting horizontal so it doesn’t need to be. If you want to shoot vertical - just turn it 90 degrees and it will work great for a vertical portrait.

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LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO
VIDEO: The Foam Core Reflector:    • DIY Photography Reflector from Walmart  
VIDEO: DIY Photography Studio Reflector Holder:    • DIY Photography Studio Reflector Hold...  
VIDEO: DIY Justin Clamp:    • DIY Justin Clamp for half the cost of...  

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Olympus M Zuiko 75mm f1.8 Lens: https://amzn.to/2V7BKh8
Neewer Reflector Holder: https://amzn.to/2GJjEiy. **LumoPro is no longer available
Godox AD200 Flash: https://amzn.to/2StGzQo
MagMod Grip and Gel Holder: https://amzn.to/2CEfp3B
MagMod Creative Gels: https://amzn.to/2RjiMoH
TetherTools Aero Table Master: https://amzn.to/2VgMj1p
TetherTools TetherBLOCK: https://amzn.to/2BItDPp
Delkin POWER 64gb SD Card: https://amzn.to/2Sqlg1N

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FTC Disclosure: No sponsors have paid for inclusion in this video. I am an Olympus Visionary photographer, a Delkin Image Maker, a TetherTools Pro and a StellaPro Champion of Light. These companies do provide me with various pieces of gear that I frequently discuss or mention, however all words and opinions are my own, and I was not asked to produce this video.

#diyphotographybackground #diyportraitbackground #portraitbackdrop