Saturday, March 13, 2010

Home Made Photo Light Box... What a Pro!

A few days ago I happened upon a homemade light box tutorial, 
which also happened to be a good thing, 
since the skies were grey and drippy.


 I don't have the links, but there were all sorts of easy to find tutorials. Some used cardboard boxes (with sides cut out), others used PVC pipe cages. The easiest, and the one I used, was a clear plastic bin, which is what you see below. In all cases you need to diffuse the light with tissue paper or a white sheet, covering your structure. I definitely needed more/better lights, (shining in the top) and I think a deeper box would have helped. 
 I put the lights pretty close to the fabric. Don't start a fire doing that! 

Oh, I also like the trick of using a piece of paper taped up behind your subject, to give that seamless background.


Here's a little fawn I found at Sally Anne a few days ago. In the light box......



.... and on my desk, in front of natural daylight.
(which I almost like better)



Kissing Salt and Pepper in the box.......



..... and on my little shelf where they've been living lately.





I tried also tried them with some great sparkly fabric, though the colour isn't right.


To hold the fabric up I used  one of those flexible cutting mats, and just taped the lower edge onto the floor of the plastic box, then draped the fabric over it. 

All of these photos were taken using the automatic setting....
... because I'm nincompoop and haven't read my manual yet! Ha-ha!

 The whole thing was easy and pretty fun.
If you're a photography newbie like me and give this a try, let me me know how it goes !

6 comments:

vanessa said...

What fun! I must admit, I'm a big fan of natural daylight for my photos, though we do get grey days, and your light box would be perfect for then, the lighting possibilities are really interesting aren't they? Love Vanessa xxx (do you mind if i knit)

pussman and co said...

Waw, I thank you so much for sharing this!
It would be great to take good pictures of my bears, sometimes it's really difficult on this dark winter days!
And even when the sun is shining it is very difficult with the shadows!
I have to make a lightbox like this!
Tomorrow I will get some stuff in IKEA!
;)))

pussman and co said...

Oooh, and I love that ripple!
I started my fourth!
But now it will be a mini ripple for one of the bears!

Unknown said...

You need to white balance your photo because of the tungsten lamps you're using in your studio. They give off an amber glow and you want more neutral color balance (like the sunlit one).

Sabine said...

This is nice! Great idea to make one for myself!

PJ said...

What a neat experience...gotta luv the Zest soap boxes ;) Like seeing your different shots of the same thing with diff. light!