Building Studio Blocks and Frames

Discover the tools and techniques you need to kit-out your studio on a budget.

Need some basic blocks and frames to kit out your set? Wondering how to make your own wooden white cubes or apple boxes for photography? It can be simpler than you think to build your own posing blocks or other studio furniture props.

Watch Karl and Tim get to work with some pre-cut plywood, a tape measure, an electric drill, a handful of screws and a few cans of paint as they build some new props for the studio, including a posing block set and some large freestanding square frames.

In this class:

  • How to build posing blocks for photography
  • Making large frames for fashion photography
  • How to build and paint photography studio furniture props

 

Karl and Tim get to work with the drill as they add to our stock of photography studio equipment by constructing some new wooden boxes and frames.

Putting the finishing touches on the DIY posing blocks and setting them up for the shoot.

Behind the scenes of the frames in use during a fashion shoot in our studio.

Behind the scenes of studio blocks in use a variety of different fashion shoots.

For more tips for building your own photography props, have a look at our ‘Sets, Props and Problem Solving‘ class.

 

Comments

  1. Hi Karl,
    Can you give us the information about the paint you are using for painting this blocks and your studio cyclorama wall?
    Thanks a lot!
    Nikola

  2. Wonderful. Tried this a month ago, and I see the error I made. In the USA, home depot will not pre-cut mdf because of the mess. May ask another store so I don’t have to deal with it.

  3. What are the dimension of the smaller blocks? I have a smaller studio and would love to have the smaller props. (The smaller box towards the end of the video)

  4. Neri

    Very useful tutorial, thanks for this. I made my own shooting blocks this week (80x40x40cm). Found that by using the same screws the MDF did split at some points although 19mm thick. So if anyone wants to do this I suggest being more careful than me, or predrill or use 3mm diameter screws.

    Also worth mentioning that the blocks are heavy and a bit hard to handle – be careful when lifting them, you only have one spine! I did it wrong one time, had back issues for 2 days and now I drilled holes in two sides to have something to place my fingers when moving them.

    1. Hi, thinner screws may also help save time to avoid the pre-drilling. Yes they can be heavy so your idea of cutting some handle holes in them is a good one.

  5. Richard137

    Thank you for this tutorial, This in itself is worth the membership alone.
    I’m slowly moving through the tutorials and I have to put my hands up and say that I have yet to come a irrelevant one, they’re so full of extremely useful information/techniques.
    Having only been a few days into the membership, I have to say that I think I’ll be here for quite some time.
    Thank you again.

    1. Hi Richard, thank you for your feedback that is much appreciated. We do try to keep our membership price as low as possible to encourage people to stay, we also deliver 2 live shows per month and 2 new courses per month which we think provides excellent value along with all our other content. One of the main things that photographers get value from is our customer support service, we are here to help you with any training related questions! So hopefully you’ll be here for a long time! 🙂

  6. What were the approx sizes of the blocks I heard 40x40x80cm & 60x60x60cm mentioned think there were some other sizes?

    Thanks Stephen

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