You don't need a huge space. For most of my life I pushed the living room furniture aside and set up for portrait and still life shots in the middle of the living room. I started with an ironed bed sheet hung from the curtain rods and some metal reflector spring clip lights and several size light bulbs 40, 60, and 100 watt. Brightness adjustment mostly involved moving the light forward and back. I clipped gels over them to change the color, and used DIY light stands made from wood. I used a card table to do still life shoots, with a black table cloth on it, some times with scraps of wood under the table cloth to make it have several levels.
When the shoot was over, everything got packed up and put in the back of a closet, until the next time. Then all of the furniture was put back where it belonged.
I have wanted my own studio most of my adult life, and 5 1/2 years ago realized that now, with my children grown, married and out of the house, that there was an almost empty 2nd Master Bedroom Suite upstairs in my home that might make a small, but adequate, photo/video studio, so I began converting it. I finished just about the time that COVID hit, so it sat mostly unused for about two years. I had done some "Still Life" shoots years ago, so decided to do some of them again, and now, whenever I have nothing else going on in the studio I've been relearning and doing "Still Life" shoots again. It's much easier with digital cameras than it was with film. Being fully retired now, I continue my love for photography in this studio.
My shooting room is 19' X 26' with a six backdrop roller system on the ceiling close to the 19' East Wall. The 10' wide backdrops are centered along this 19' wall, so I have about 4 1/2' of space along the North and South walls for prop storage, etc. I have computer tables along the South wall with printers, charging station, etc. on them. So the 10' wide by about 20' long center of the room is used in many ways, depending on the type of shoot. To keep light stands and power cords off the floor as much as possible for safety reasons, I built a ceiling support grid from steel angles, 4" below the ceiling, 10' long and spaced about 4' apart, running parallel with the backdrops. I use 5' lengths of this same angle material to bridge between any two of the adjacent 10' angles to allow hanging lights, etc. anywhere below the ceiling grid and I added power outlet strips on the ceiling running past both ends of these 10' long ceiling grid angles, giving me an electric outlet every 6" along each strip all the way to the backdrops.. These short 5' long angles allow me to hang lights anywhere within the 10' wide by ~ 24' long shooting space. So power is available on the ceiling within about 5' of any hanging light location, and above the usual floor positions that I might wish to place a light stand. I still use light stands, but not always on the floor. The tether cable also runs up to the ceiling grid with enough cable slack to allow free movement of the camera anywhere within the camera half of the room. I have an extension tether cable should I ever wish to move beyond this first cable capability.
So, although I would love a larger studio, what I have is far better than I have had for most of my photography life. But pushing the living room furniture out of the way and using the center of the room for portraits and still life is still possible, and many just getting started make do, just as I did, but hopefully with better lights, stands, camera, etc. than I had. We have come a very long way in photography since I started back in the 1950's.
Charley
