Photo Backdrops • The Edit - Grey Marble

Today I want to show you one of my first and favourite backdrops in the store. I found this marble topped table on eBay a couple of years ago and drove to Glastonbury to pick up it after I won it as the only bidder! Marble is beautiful, has depth and has a chameleon like quality depending on the light it is photographed in and for me, is a staple in my own repertoire. 

There are lots of cheaper marble alternatives available, sticky back plastic material you can roll onto a board but the marble is almost too perfect for me, a very bright white with harsh black or grey veins running through it. I am never convinced the patterns come from a real marble and I am forever on the hunt for interesting coloured marble, really I need to make friends with a stone mason ;)

For the last 18 months I have wheeled my preloved table through from the kitchen, over the step up to the conservatory door which we use as a playroom/work space for me. And boy is it an effort. It doesn't lend itself to being flung in the boot when I have a photo shoot on location. It's heavy, unwieldy and the now three wheeled table (I'm not quite sure what happened to the fourth) sometimes seems to have a mind of it's own and I end up huffing and puffing trying to manoeuvre it into the small area of good quality light in the house in the winter. 

The vinyl version was a revelation. And I haven't used the real deal since.

I pop it out of the tube, position it wherever I like, curl it up and over a box, or I think I used my typewriter for this shot, and when I am done I wipe it clean with a piece of kitchen roll and pop it back in it's tube. Without even one whisper of a puff. 

Marble is so versatile and you can create different looks depending on the white balance settings or the type of light you are shooting in. I wanted to show you how different it can feel and the atmosphere it can create by setting my camera to auto white balance, daylight, shade, cloudy and then editing one using my favourite A Beautiful Mess basic action set.

Which feels more like you? The warmer tones? The cooler bluer hue?

I love that this marble is perfectly imperfect. There are real marks, wear and tear, slight stains, but in an Instagram friendly way ;) The grey marble is in stock and in the backdrop store as is it's new sister. A whiter piece from the shop front of a local delicatessen in our nearest town.

Head on over and see which takes your fancy...