Yesterday I broke out the light box to take some pictures of some snowdrop flowers from our backyard. It was a fun little bit of time spent while Sprout was sleeping. The background of the first 3 shots is the lid from a cookie tin. As I spend more time taking pictures using the light box I am beginning to foresee new possibilities with it.

I posted my favourite shot over on my photoblog for yesterdays picture.

The above is my photoblog post for today. I was shooting again in my lightbox after making a couple cutouts to recess the lights a little. This works well, and allows me to get much closer to my subject. I think this also helps the illumination.

FYI, this is my todo list notebook. I am about halfway through the book.

Some other shots from this session:

All the shots.

Highlights from a photo shoot I did at home today in my light box. I made some mods to the box to make it easier to work with. Today all I did was cut down the depth, so it was more square. This works much better now. Next time I will make some cutouts to recess the lights a little. I think I will also cut a top flap so I can take overhead shots too.

All pics are here. These are some coffee beans that I am sure to enjoy another day.

Woke up this morning to the sounds of rain, and a feeling of being sick. Bad combination for photoclub. The shoot this morning (a pumpkin patch) was cancelled and I was left with a lot of time on my hands.

I decided to finally embark on the light box project. I headed out to Michaels to get some foam board and white masking tape, and left the store without the tape (no white). I zipped to Canadian Tire and grabbed a couple clamp lights, and some bulbs. Then it was assembly time.

I didn’t really follow the directions that I originally read, and in retrospect I should have. There are a couple tips in there about the size, and cutouts for the light clamps. Those are easy to retrofit. Also, once I get some white tape, I can mask off the inside seams. The final one is that I need more light in it. It is a little dark. I may also try getting different bulbs. The ones I got are still quite yellow, and I had to set a custom white balance before shooting.

Here is another tip for would-be DIY’ers. When you cut foam board, make sure the knife you use is very sharp, otherwise the cut will not be smooth.

Here is my end result:

Not bad for a couple hours of time (shopping included).

So, being a rainy day, having a freshly made light box, and having a camera waiting to take some pictures, what is a photographer to do?

Read on to see the pics.

Of course it was after I got the pictures onto my computer I saw all the dust marks. I will fix that before my next shoot. For now I don’t feel like trying to edit those out.

The best part is that now I have a place to shoot when it isn’t so nice outside. This will be an insteresting creativity experiment too.