This week we are working our way through the aisles of the Big Orange Store, but this stuff is not necessarily specific to Home Depot. Many of these things can be found at just about any big hardware store, and the idea is to think frugally and creatively when scrounging for lighting and photo gear._______________________I could spend all day wandering around a Home Depot or a Lowes store. So many possibilities: Hardware, lighting, backdrops, DIY supplies -- I get tingly just thinking about it.Today, however, we are beginning in the paint aisle, looking for backdrops. HD has 'em in just about any size you want, only they call them drop cloths. These are washable canvas and they are dirt cheap.How 'bout under $10 for a 6x9-foot canvas?More, including a link to a discussion on how to paint it and another way cool backdrop idea after the jump.My photo "to-do" list is long, and growing. And one of the things on it is to paint a studio backdrop. I did one in college, and used it a lot. In fact, I got so much use out of it I had to pawn it off on another shooter, lest I become a 5'6" walking cliché of myself.

If you have the time and inclination, a roll-up painted backdrop is a no-brainer. $10 for canvas, $10 for paint and a coupla bucks for 2x2's at each end to form a roll-up structure. I'll be going into more detail on the process when I get a round tuit and make one, but no trip to Home Depot would be complete without passing by the bargain basement canvas backdrop aisle.There is discussion on how to paint it here and more to be had if you do a little Googling. If you find a really good tutorial, throw us a bone in the comments.________________________And here's another idea that's a little off the wall: What about counter-top laminate as a backdrop? I was looking at the selection in Big Orange and there were some very nice portrait backdrops if you think of those counters vertically.They come in 4x8-foot sheets for about $50. I would mount them to a sheet of 1/2" MDF board and collect them, if I had a permanent studio space. Two holes drilled through at the top, and on one side, would make them very easy to temporarily mount via pegs in a wall.

Vertical for single portraits, and horizontal for group head-and-shoulders shots. (The 4x8' thing would be your limiting factor.)Very durable, and pretty cheap. And the dark, shiny colors are great for those specular background shots.And just to show you my sophisticated studio for shooting this kind of stuff, here's a setup shot:My "light stand" came from the rag drawer, the soft box came from the printer (with a minimal amount of origami) and the flash is a 20-year-old SB-26. It was triggered using the slave mode from the on-board flash, which was gobo'd with my hand so it would not contribute to the lighting.Or jump right to Lighting 101 Connect w/Strobist readers via: Words | Hit me on Twitter: @Strobist Next live event: GPP PopUP Berlin (Oct. 29-30)تم تحديث صورة الغلاف من قبل ‏‎The Home DepoNEW 3 in 1 Heat Control FilmA warm-toned home window tint with obvious benefits and a subtle look. Find Gila home and auto retailers near you with our handy online locator.

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Pictured are her fiancee Bill Gallucci, Home Depot store manager Jessica Morotto, Kate Schussler, Lorri Trate, Jay Forsythe, Brian Blymiller, Mike Holowacz, Alan Simon and Jake Leone. POTTSTOWN >> Michele Labant has owned her Cherry Street home for about 10 years. But with deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, she estimates she may only have spent about four years actually living there. As a result, maintenance has been an issue. Those issues multiplied in July, 2011, when the armored truck Labant was driving in northern Afghanistan was hit by an explosive device. Three soldiers were killed and five injured, including Labant, in the explosion. A civilian processor for the Pottstown Police Department, Labant suffers from traumatic brain injury, a herniated disc, and back problems that “go down into my left hip.” “I still fall down and lose my balance a lot,” said Labant, who spent eight years and 11 months in the 131st Transport Unit of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, service which included tours of both Iraq and Afghanistan.

It was during a tour in Iraq that Labant met her fiancee, Bill Gallucci, whose Connecticut Army National Guard unit was short by 30 soldiers. He is still in the service and based in Connecticut, so his ability to get to Pottstown and help Labant with work around the house remains limited. And that’s where Home Depot comes in. As part of a recent push to have its “Team Depot” projects focus on helping veterans, $15,000 worth of work was recently undertaken at Labant’s home. The work involved a new walkway in the back of her home; a wall repair and new back steps; an atrium over the back door to the garage to prevent ice from building up on the walk; a platform to raise up the home’s washer and dryer so Labant does not have to bend over to use them and a major bathroom upgrade, said Jessica Morrotto, manager of the Home Depot store in Lower Pottsgrove. “We help whenever we can in the community,” Morrotto said, “but this project was special.”

She explained that while stores in the chain regularly undertake quarterly community service projects, the corporation recently “challenged us to find ways to give back to veterans.” And give back they did.“We walked through the house with Michelle and asked ‘if you could get everything done that you wanted, what would it be?’ and that’s how we got our to-do list,” Morrotto said. The project was sizeable enough that it required applying for and receiving a grant from Home Depot’s foundation. The $15,000 covers all the materials but, thanks to volunteers from the store, the labor is free. Brian Blymiller is another kind of veteran, the kind who has been at the Home Depot on Armand Hammer Boulevard since 1992. “I work at the pro-desk,” Blymiller explained as he took a break from cutting wood for the garage atrium. “We came out and did the wall repair yesterday so we could beat the rain,” he said as water sloshed in the grass beneath the boots of the volunteer workers.

“This morning we pulled up the brick from the walk, salvaged the ones that were still good because Michelle asked us to, and tomorrow we’ll finish up inside,” he said. Home Depot is not the only business to lend a hand, Blymiller said. When he called Ryan Schwenk, who owns Dumpster for You in Boyertown, and asked for a dumpster to hold the debris from the stairs, Schwenk donated the dumpster and his company’s services, Blymiller said. But there was also another crucial piece in putting the puzzle pieces of this project together. The landscaping in the yard, new alongside the new fencing, is bordered with the bricks Labant saved from the walk. But it was not the Home Depot volunteers who put them there. Rather, that work was done by volunteers from Vets for Vets, a two-year-old Pennsburg-based non-profit organization founded by Jake Leone that works as a local network to connect vets who come with whatever they need. “We help veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan who need help finding housing, a job, getting new training or who come home to a divorce, or get into trouble with alcohol or other substances,” said Leone, who himself just transferred from the Army Reserve to the Air National Guard.

“We just ask the vets to perform some community service in return,” he explained. Leone said his organization, which has no paid staff, found out about Home Depot’s efforts when a different store hung some blinds at the renovated post office which serves as the group’s headquarters and temporary housing for veterans without. “We knew Michele needed work done because she helped us out by giving us an old Ford Probe she had for a vet who needed a car,” said Leone. “That’s how we got plugged in to her.” “ — where we sell hats and shirts to raise money and we could handle maybe $1,000, but $15,000 was a little more than we could muster,” Leone said with a laugh. So he put Labant in touch with Home Depot and, after a bit of paperwork, things worked out. “We couldn’t handle what her house needed but because we’re networked with Home Depot, I know about this push to give back to veterans,” said Leone, “and obviously, Michelle has given enough.”