How I Built a Lightbox for $0

I’m 39 weeks into a 52 week project. Every week I go to this Art Prompt Generator for a random prompt and then spend a week taking a photo to match the prompt. This week was “Candy”. I wasn’t getting great results taking pictures of candy on plates, counters or other mundane surfaces so I thought I’d try a lightbox.

I propped a curved piece of printer paper up against some cardboard. I positioned the setup so my flash was on one side and a mirror was on the other. That’s it! The flash is a cheapo Yongnuo triggered remotely. The stand and umbrella are also just the cheapest things on Amazon. My whole strobist kit cost less than $150 and I certainly didn’t buy it for this one photo.

Here’s a picture of the whole setup:

The makeup vanity just happened to be a convenient place — I could have used any horizontal surface near a mirror. I saw a bunch of tutorials for lightboxes that involved multiple lights, all sorts of materials like plexiglass with white cloth. Not necessary!

The final photo (up top) was taken with a Canon 6D and the 40mm f/2.8 lens. It was dead simple and I’m really happy with how the photo turned out.

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