Photo Shoot Setup - Sharing trade secrets!

I promised my friend Jen that I'd post some pictures of my photo studio set up next time I did it. I set it up in my living room, by moving all the furniture out of the way... yes, a real pain, but it's the best space to do it! Put the floor down and set up the backdrop. I took these photos at a bad time of day, lighting wise, but by the time people show up the sun has moved a little, or I can just close the curtains to cut out that harsh sunlight that you see.





I would like it if the portable floor could be propped up about 3 ft, so I wouldn't have to crouch down so far to shoot (which is a real pain right now, considering I'm 8 months pregnant!!), the lighting in the room is amazing because of all the windows we have, but a more confined space would be nice for keeping the heat around for newborn shoots (hot = sleepy). And I would love not to have to set it up and take it down each time (but dedicated studio = $$$$). Other than that it's great, and I'm really lucky to have this resource so close at hand!

These are the resulting images:

What does your studio look like?? I'd love to know! :)

Cool, I got props from the Guru.

This week I felt pretty proud of this: http://aliedwards.typepad.com/_a_/2008/11/gratitude.html

I received a private message from Ali Edwards asking if she could post my layout on her blog. She was doing a post on translation in the creative language and how people translated her templates into their own creation. And my Gratitute page of Gillian was chosen among 6 others to illustrate her point. (for those of you who don't know who Ali Edwards is, she is a guru in the scrapbooking world - so to get props from her is pretty cool!).

Now its the weekend, I hope to pull out the camera and take lots of pics of the girls. I'd like to set up a little studio in our living room, since it's the best place to take indoor photos. We have 2 stories of windows (great for light, bad for heating bills!) which is perfect, I just have to figure out how to rig a backdrop. I tried nailing a black sheet to the ceiling once before:

Here is the black sheet.. worked ok, but not perfect.
But you can see how great the light is, especially for catch lights.

I found the sheet too small, it picked up the dust like crazy (it was basically black felt) and it fell down easily. I think I've come up with a plan to be able to put up whatever backdrop I want, and it be relatively secure (as secure as it's going to get with two little girls running around!). I'll work on it tomorrow, if I get a chance to do some shopping, but it essentially is going to be a small curtain rod fastened to the end of the ceiling with fabric hanging from it. I wonder what Eric will think of my plan!! :)

**update**
It's funny, just before I went to post this I took a peek at Jen's blog and she also wrote about her home studio today!! Too funny!! Great minds think alike! (Jen I'm off to get me a G&T!!)