How To Take Great Photos For Reselling In A Small Space With No Natural Light

I wanted to make a big post listing all the things I use to take photos for reselling in a small space. These have changed a lot over the years but I really love what I’m working with right now.  Everything I have makes taking photos really comfortable and I get a result I’m really happy with. I live in a two bedroom apartment and don’t have a dedicated space for photography, so everything I have either has multiple uses or folds up when not in use. I have the double whammy of having a small space but also being mostly awake at night, so using daylight as is usually recommended is just not an option for me. I am currently reselling not as a job but as a way to declutter, downsize and offset a potential tendency toward hoarding. If you’d like to follow along – check out my reselling/decluttering Instagram here.

Before I go on, I have to put a disclaimer on this post. Reselling full time is incredibly hard work – it’s not just having a grand time at the thrift store and magically selling cool stuff you find (yes this was me, I was depressed, we’ll get to that part of the story). It’s inventory, organizing, ironing, washing, cleaning, photographing, editing, writing copy, measuring, taking notes, researching, calculating fees, taping boxes, printing labels, and crossing your fingers what you post will even sell.  I was a reseller of vintage goods on Etsy for over ten years and never made enough money to make it full time or even part time. The most I ever made was about $1000 in a year. I also fell into the trap of thinking I could get rich quick about five years ago and spent way too much money trying to become a big Amazon FBA seller. I was very depressed, in a very bad relationship and following along with people who were making 5-6 figures a month telling me I could do it too and that just wasn’t reasonable. At the same time, I was shopping constantly for my vintage shop to make myself feel less depressed but just not listing enough to make money.

The reason I am even talking about taking photos for reselling in a small space is I am currently liquidating my past resale inventory along with downsizing our household items and stuff from my childhood (we want to live tiny in a couple years!). I’m actually doing pretty good reselling now. I’ve made about $500 in just over a month, mostly on Ebay but a little on Amazon, Poshmark and Mercari also. I’m selling bundles of things I bought to sell, intending them to go to other resellers. Please accept my cautionary tale as just that – one tale out of a million reselling stories. Don’t be discouraged, if you are a reseller I am cheering you on! If you’re reselling stuff to declutter, awesome! You’re doing great! Get some of this photo equipment and use my tips to make your photos look great and your stuff sell quicker.

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Photos For Reselling In A Small Space: Small-Medium Items

Amzdeal Light Box – 20 inch

I can’t explain how much of a game changer this light box has been. I actually got it as a gift for Christmas from my sister and I had no idea I needed it but I did. It is a big cube and perfect for anything small-medium size, or for a small space flatlay.  It uses two LED light strips which hang by magnets and can be adjusted. There are three places for taking photos – a small and large opening in the front and a hole in the top. I only use the white backdrop currently but it also has gray, black and a beige. It all folds up into a small bag making it perfect for a small space and it can be put back together in about five minutes. We made room for mine in our closet since I use it all the time to photograph my crochet projects.

Here are some examples of my crochet photos outside using natural light with a piece of foam board as the backdrop versus photos in the light box.

And here are some product photos taken in the box of stuff I recently sold:

The light box and your camera is seriously all you need for really great quality photos of anything that will fit in the box. But what about the stuff that won’t fit? A couple new things and a couple things from around the house can mimic a completely acceptable photo studio in whatever space you have. Below is a photo of my living room ‘photo studio’.

Photos For Reselling In A Small Space: Bulky, Odd Shaped or Large Items

For stuff that won’t work in the box, I set up our living room something like this. Here’s what I use:

Large coffee table, the floor, a bed, or a table

This will depend on what you’re photographing. Doing mostly flatlay? Use the floor or a coffee table. Our coffee table is a large hexagon but I just use it anyway even though I have dark corners sometimes. Don’t have a big coffee table? Put the cats in the bedroom and use the floor. This whole set up can also be done on a bed which I have done when the living room was occupied, but it’s harder for me to get the camera high enough for flat lay. If your photos need to be taken from the front instead of above, use a table pushed against the wall or a bed.

A small fold up stool

This is for flat lay – you’ve got to get your camera high enough to catch everything in the photo, especially if you are doing clothing on Poshmark and need those square photos. I am 5’3, so I can’t do this on my own. I use a little fold up stool to get up high enough for a wide shot.

A plain white quilt

The one I’m using has a design on the other side. You could use a sheet but I think it would be too thin and might slide around and show wrinkles. Of course if your coffee table is a color and style you like just use it. I prefer a white background and I also get a bit of a glare on the coffee table that I don’t get on the quilt. Below are photos on the coffee table with and without the quilt. I know some people use big rugs for flatlays and that’s a good option too if you have room to store it where it won’t get dirty, but I don’t.

White foam board

This is for non flat lay – use piece of white foam board to create a vertical background for the photos. Stand the board on end on the quilt behind your item and prop it up using a chair, box or your lamp. If you don’t have a cluttered background, this may not be necessary. The photo below was taken with just the white blinds in the background and I would comfortable listing this on any selling platform.

White Umbrella Reflector Photo Light

This light is great and inexpensive. It’s a little unconventional but we use this light as a normal lamp in our bedroom and as a craft light when it’s not being used as a photo light. It gives off really nice bright white light. It comes with an umbrella that I usually use for photos but is not pictured above.

Normal lamp with daylight bulb

If you’re doing a lot of product photography like this and have the space, just get two umbrella photo lights. They can be bought in a bundle and fold up pretty small when not in use for storage. I only have one so my secondary light is our cheap living room lamp with a daylight bulb. The daylight bulb is the key – it gives off that nice white light you want for photos.

On Lighting

You want the other lights off if possible while taking photos if they are the normal yellow-y house lights, this will keep out that yellow tint as much as possible. If you have a window you can be near great, but if that’s not an option for you don’t worry, you can still get good photos. I sleep during the day and work at night so daylight is rarely available for me. And living in a small apartment, there’s only so much space so it’s hard to get next to a window anyway. You’ll see in the photo above the blinds are closed because it was the middle of the night. And here’s the photo I got from that shot, using just the lighting pictured:

On Editing

Of course you aren’t finished once you take the photo. I use the freeware editing software Photoscape on my computer, it’s really simple to use and has a batch editing option. If I’m editing photos on my phone, I use the built in editor on my iPhone or the free version of A Color Story for more serious editing.

My Camera: Nikon D5300

Of course any camera you have can take photos that are perfect for reselling, including your cell phone. Use what you have and don’t let having only a cell phone stop you. In fact, I guarantee your cell phone camera is better than any old digital cameras you have lying around from over five years ago. Occasionally I use my iPhone but mostly I use my DSLR camera since I already have it for blogging. If you want to dabble in photography, have a blog, have other products to sell or just want to invest, the Nikon D5300 is the camera I recommend. I use an older 18-55mm kit lens for wider shots. I recently bought my first non-kit lens, a 35mm f/1.8mm because it was recommended for product photography. Nearly all these photos were taken with that camera on the auto setting. It’s on the lower end as far as price for a DSLR, it’s an older model so you can purchase used or refurbished, and it’s easy to use.

The one main thing I wanted was a camera with the capability to send the photos directly to my phone, bypassing the computer, and this one does it via its own WiFi signal which I connect to on my phone. For reselling on sites optimized for mobile, like Poshmark, this saves time. It has a flip out screen which helps when holding the camera over my head for those larger flatlays. It also has the capability to use a small remote for shutter release. If you are taking a lot of photos of similar items, you can set the camera on a tripod and shutter release with the remote. You can do this same thing using your cell phone with this tripod and bluetooth remote kit for cell phone which I also have and highly recommend (pictured below, I was making a TikTok video lol). This one is a tabletop version, but there are also kits with larger tripods for your cell phone.

And I think that’s everything! Here’s a big list of my favorite stuff to recap:

White Umbrella Reflector Photo Light

Amzdeal Light Box – 20 inch

Nikon D5300

Tripod and bluetooth remote kit for cell phone

Have any questions? Send a message on Instagram or Facebook.

Need more reseller stuff? My big list of resale links can be found here. I’ll be adding more posts as I do more decluttering.

Follow my decluttering/reselling journey on Instagram.