Make Your Own Lightbox

Can you believe we only have a couple days left of March! It’s starting to look more like Spring but if feels more like November here in the northeast.

You know you’re a food blogger when you are excited for at the start of Spring when it’s lighter outside during dinnertime. It is  much easier to take more flattering pictures of your dish with the natural light, right?!

Well to help in the lighting category, this weekend we made a homemade lightbox. This not only will come in handy for dark, dreary days in the kitchen but for taking pictures of my jewelry as well! Angela from Oh She Glows made one a few months ago so I thought I’d share mine as well! This was pretty easy especially since I had Keith to help me out. lol

Homemade Lightbox

What you will need:

• large box
• white fabric or tissue paper
• duct tape
• box cutter
• 3 utility lamps
• 3 daylight bulbs (100 watt)
• colorful fabric (optional)

Total cost approx. $20

Step 1:

Take your cardboard box and tape one end with the duct tape (this will be the back). Then with your box cutter cut off the front flaps and then cut a window out of the three sides, leave the bottom as is.

Step 2:

Take your white fabric or tissue paper and cut out three squares to fit over the windows that you just cut out from the box and duct tape it to the box.

Step 3:

Slice a slit in the top so you can switch out different color fabrics for the background of your pictures. Love this idea!!

Step 4:

Set it up, shine the lights through each window for a nice soft lighting without all the shadows. The lights come with clamps attached so I clamped two of them on my chairs and the top one is clamped onto my dining room light.

Have fun taking pictures and trying out different backgrounds!

Here’s a picture of a bowl of soup taken under my normal kitchen lighting.

Now here is the same bowl of soup taken from the same angle in the lightbox.

What a difference, don’t ya think?!

The only complaint I have about this is where to store it because it is rather large. I really can’t see this staying on my dining room table, somehow I have a feeling the cat will take it over before too long! lol

With that said,  I really do think its makes such a big difference when you don’t have the option of natural lighting during the day!

Want the recipe for the soup picture above?

It’s Lemon Chicken Soup with Spaghetti from Giada De Laurentiis. I love anything lemon and this soup is really simple and delicious!

 

A special thanks to hubby for helping me out with this project!