How to Build Photography Lights

Video Transcript

"This is Mark Bowers, from bowersphotography.com, in Utah, and this segment, is build your own photography lights. A few things that I've done in the past, is soft box, for my on the camera flash. I take the flash, and I put it in a soft box, and I mount it on the camera. Let me show you how this is made. It's made out of matte board, that's been cut, and using duct tape just to put it together, and then we glued some white material on the front, and actually, the uglier that it looks, the prettier the light it is. We put it right on the camera, and it creates a beautiful soft light, on somebody's face. I go to fabric stores, and I find this Rip-Stop Nylon anywhere. It's really not very expensive, and I use this all the time. In fact, one of the best things to use this for, and you can even substitute shower curtains. To use this, you can hang it on a tripod, or hang it on some kind of a pole, and shine some lights through it, to create soft effects. We've also gone to the hardware store, and bought spotlights, for not very much money, and some of them even come with their own tripods, and we can shine it through this type of material, to create beautiful lighting for interiors. Another thing that I use a lot, is foam core, or it's a white foam board, and I've put duct tape on the back, and I found some really nice silver material. I use this for reflectors, and I bounce the light, everywhere that I need it to go. Another thing that I built quite a long time ago, was a larger soft box like this, that I use for a hair light. It's made out of the same foam core material, with tape on it, and there's glue in there, and I use this to keep the light from flashing into my camera, but it's basically a white material, in front of a flash tube. One more thing I wanted to show you, was I bought this, one inch thick foam insulation, at the hardware store. It's 4 X 8 feet, and I cut it in the middle. On the back side, I put a hinge, and I've glued this tape down, and I've got two or three layers of tape for a hinge. On the inside, I used white shelving material, to coat this, and it makes a beautiful white reflector, to keep the shadows from getting too dark, on the unlit side, or the shadow side of your subject."