Photography Light Box Hack

Photography Light Box Hack

No more waiting on good sunlight in the window!

This is my new light box... "New" being highly subjective if the wear on the box can be noticed.  

I just read this article on the subject and thought, I have some of that! The paper is baking parchment, by the way.

Photo Light Box Hack

I love inexpensive hacks! 

Photography Hack Light Box

Struggling With Photography?

Sunlight is great, BUT... What to do when the weather is not behaving for your photography studio? Use equipment! Sunlight can be harsh at noon. Soft light, at sunrise can be harsh... Well, all sunlight can be harsh. Slightly cloudy days are nice for soft light, but the light might not be bright enough. How to get that perfect balance? 

Photography Hack Soap

Tips To Control Light

Tip #1   To get rid of cracks, contours, blemishes – over expose. Bring in more light than necessary and make the background as white as possible, eliminating shadows. This is called “high key." This can be done with flashes, camera settings or post editing in software.

Tip#2 To photograph details in your soap to create shadows. Shadows show contrast. There is a fine balance between harsh light and bright light, but enough light reveals the details. Contrast, dark verses light, can show details.

Tip#3 If you want to sell your soap avoid props, busy backgrounds or other distracting information. Each photo tells a story and the story you want your audience to focus on is the object in the photo. Unless the props are essential to the story, avoid props. Its distracting and takes away from your soap. 

Tip #4  Using direct flash or light on your soap, unless controlled, is rarely appealing and will cause harsh shadows. A better use of light is to bounce the light at a bright surface above or around the soap. The ideal is to allow light to wrap around the object. Fluorescent and soft light is good for this wrap effect. Think about a cloudy day. The light is soft and all thing are lit but few shadows. 

Tip #5 Clean up each photo.  When cutting soap little crumbs can appear that our eyes cannot see, but the camera can. Any soap blemish or specks will come into focused and that will be what your viewer sees. It's a natural behavior to pattern-match and when something is out of sync the viewer will focus on that and the mind/eye will continue to move to that mis-matched pattern. To not be afraid (or lazy) to re-take the photo. We no long have to worry about film so take as many photos as you like. 

Tip #6 Be mindful with whites: white areas of the soap. Strive to SEE the information in the image. Say what you see out loud. This helps to understand what is in the photo verses what one thinks is in the photo. We take so much for granted that most information is just absorbed. This is a good practice in all areas, not just soap photography. General rule of thumb: the eye will go to the first white area in the photo. 

A clean soap, with minimal distractions that is well lit, is ideal. 

More photography hacks here... 

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