Tricks for Photographing Knitting: Flat Lay Backgrounds

One of my favorite parts about knitting is taking pictures of my creations to share on social media or here on my blog.  I guess photographing knitting is its own little sub-hobby for me – I get really into it.  I thought I’d write some posts with a few tips for photographing your knitting.  This first one is going to focus on ideas for backgrounds for knitting flat lays.

I have tried out dozens of options for flat lay backgrounds and I encourage you to experiment too.  In general, you want a background that as large as possible and totally matte so it doesn’t reflect light.

I’ll write another post where I talk about the equipment I use, but in case you are curious now: I shoot all my photos on my good ole’ iPhone 7 mounted on a boom tripod made for phones.

White Backgrounds

I feature a lot of white-background photos in my etsy shop and here on my blog.  I used to use a white poster board but I recently upgraded to a white pvc background specifically created for product photography.  The pvc background is a brighter white than poster board, so I spend less time brightening it up in post-processing.  The background I use is 24 x 51 inches, where your standard piece of poster board is 22 x 28 inches.  This gives me more room to work with, which saves time.

The pvc material also comes in solid colors, but I don’t want to spend the money on that, so I typically just use colored poster board and then I amp up the vibrance of it a bit in post-processing.

Printed-Texture Backgrounds

I’ve also tried a number of printed backgrounds.  You can search Amazon for “photography background” and you will find a zillion options!  Most of the cheaper ones are vinyl backdrops intended to go on a backdrop stand for studio photography.  These are okay, but they a little unwieldly – they are typically about the size of a shower curtain and wrinkle or crease very easily when in storage.  If you find one you love and it’s not that expensive, I recommend cutting it down to a more manageable size so you will be able to store it flat or rolled up.

My favorite printed flay lay backgrounds are poster boards with textures printed on them.  My favorites are the 22 x 35” double-sided flat lay backgrounds, like these.  I have some of the wood-grain and cement styles.  I wish they came with more options, but sometimes I play around with the temperature, saturation and shadows in post-processing to create a little variety, like below:

Contact Paper

Another option I’ve experimented with is contact paper.  This is my least favorite background because a lot of it tends to be shiny and your lights reflect in it, so be careful.  The exception is chalkboard contact paper which is totally matte and offers fun options to doodle around the subject of your photo.  I stick my contact paper to a poster board instead of keeping it on the roll because it’s easier to work with that way.

Wrapping Paper

Last, but not least, is wrapping paper, which can be a hit-or-miss.  Some wrapping papers can have the same issue as contact paper in that they can reflect light but it’s not as bad – you can typically fiddle with the angle of your lights to get a good set up.  Be careful with double-sided wrapping paper because sometimes shadows from the printing on the other side creep through.