Photography

Make a Lightbox

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A lightbox is a photographic tool for shooting photos in evenly diffused light.  Lightboxes are often used in advertising photography to present a clean, crisp image.

I recorded the steps of constructing a lightbox to demonstrate how simple it is to get this photographic effect.

Why would you want to construct a lightbox if you are not going to be an advertising photographer?  A lightbox simply showcases your work in the best light.  Suppose you are a sculptor, jeweler, doll maker, knitter or any other type of creative artist who would like to open an online shop and get in on the action and make some serious coin.  Customers need to see your product unencumbered by distracting visual data that impedes their ability to discern if they want to buy your wonderful creations.  Give them simple, give them direct.  Give them tomatoes.  Or tomatos if your Dan Quale.  Does anyone remember this guy?!

Now that I view the tomatoe photo I’d like to edit out the shadow around the bottom and corners. But that’s a Photoshop story.

My husband, Mike Wilson, recently opened an online store aptly named Stone Cairns, to sell his cairn art.   He also sells his cairn art in Suttons Bay, Michigan at The Painted Bird; at the Santa Fe Trading Company in Saugatauk, Michigan, and at The Ruth Conklin Gallery in Glen Arbor, Michigan.  So check out these groovy shops if you’re ever at the lakeshore.

Incidentally, I told him to change his shop profile picture because it looks like I’m married to a twenty-year-old.  I took this picture way back when when we went hiking on Isle Royale, Michigan.   Which reminds me – *News Flash* – Biologists fear moose and wolf populations will soon go extinct on Isle Royale, because population numbers are very low.  So if you’d like to go hiking and see some moose, now is probably the time to go.

Things You’ll Need for Construction:

1. White Felt

2. Cardboard box

3. Glue

4. Scissors

5. Velcro

6. Measuring tape

 

Lightbox Steps

1. Find a large, sturdy, approximately 2 ft. X 2 ft. cardboard box.  Keep in mind what you will be taking photos of, because you don’t want the sides to show.  This will ultimately decide the size of the box you need.  You can always add extra pieces of cardboard along the sides if you need to make the box sturdier.

2. Cut out four openings: the front, two sides, and top.  Leave about 2 inches of cardboard around edge for stability purposes on each side.

3. If you feel the need for more stability, glue strips of cardboard to the edges to make the corners sturdier.

4. Cut out poster board pieces to fit over all exposed areas inside the box except the bottom and the back wall.

5. Then cut poster board to size so it lays on bottom on box and curves up along the back.  You don’t want edges to show in the lightbox because you’ll see them in the photo.

6. Cut felt to fit three open sides.

7. Attach the velcro to the felt so it adheres to the box.  When you’re done, your finished product should look something like this:

Voila!  Enjoy your cheap, custom-made lightbox.  You don’t need special photo equipment or cameras to take great lightbox photos.  Play around with lamps and other light sources to get good results.

 

Interpreting Art

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Montreal Latin Quarter Art Exhibit, copyright Ellen Wilson

And what do you think?

No, no.  What do you think? 

I think it’s strange.  Great.  Abominable.  I love it! 

Throughout our knuckle dragging history we have always been fascinated with portraying the world around us.  From the caves of Lacaux, France, to the most modern of the modern embodied by the pope of pop, Andy Warhol, we have always sought as a species to render reality by what what we thought of it.

And what do we think of it?

Art can be classified into many different forms and types.  But who cares about that.  I’m not an art history major.  The question is, what does it do to us? Do for us?

Art has always:

Informed

Provoked

Challenged

Amused

Inspired

and Irritated

I can think of many instances where art has been banned.  Or many people wanted it to be.  But why?

Because it causes uncomfortable feelings.

I am one of those non-purists who think that photography is art.  Witness the great landscapes of Ansel Adams or the studio portraiture of Annie Leibovitz.  While Adam’s photos tend to inspire through the start beauty of his black and white landscapes, Leibovitz’s photos run the emotional gamut from what they are able to accomplish.  Just in the last couple of years Leibovitz has managed to:

Irritate the Queen of England when she asked her to take off her crown for a photoshoot

Challenge our view of social and racial stereotypes with the photo of Giselle Bundchen and LeBron James gracing the the cover of Vogue

And Amuse us with the public relations campaign to withdraw a celebrity protrait that was supposedly unacceptable of Miley Cyrus

Let us keep these things in mind as we take pictures.

Do you simply point and snap hoping to capture a great image?  Or are you alert – always looking for possibilities inherent in a situation?  Obviously the last question separates good from great photos.

If you want to photograph art, you must think like an artist.  While it is fairly easy to teach people camera techniques and tricks, it is much harder teaching people point of view and composition.  Point of view is colored by your philosophy of life, and composition is portraying that point of view.

Next time you take a picture see if you can’t capture your subject’s point of view or your point of view own reflected by your subject.

Photocredit: © Ellen Wilson

The Wisdom of a Glass Half Full

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Wine!

You will say, “Alright already, fill the glass up.  Who wants to be cheated with half a glass?”

The more moderate of you will say, “Of course half full is good.  That is the middle way.”

This post is not about the crazy wisdom of over doing it, or the middle way, but something else.

Bring your ear closer and I will tell you a story:

There was this university professor who knew everything about Zen.  And now some of you may be thinking why is she talking about Zen again?  Because Zen is like that magical trout slippery fish that always gets away.

Bear with me awhile…

So this university professor was well learned about all things Zen and went and saw this Zen monk to tell him what he knew. The monk listened politely as this professor went on and on about all of these things.  And as is custom, the monk was serving tea.  The professor held out his cup, all the while talking, expounding his great knowledge.  All of a sudden the professor noticed that his hand was getting wet from the monk overflowing his tea cup.

“Ah! Stop!” He said.

The monk put down the teapot.

“Why did you do that?” the professor asked.

“How can I give you any more knowledge when you already know everything?” the monk replied; wiping his hand on a clean, linen cloth.

This idea is really about what we think we know versus what we don’t.  Do we think we know everthing?  Of course not. But we do have our ideas about things. And they get in the way.  We assume things.  Because of our conditioning.

Karen Swim developed a beautiful post about assumptions.  Please read it to understand how you mind can actually act as a roadblock instead of a tool to help you move forward.

If you do not operate with an open mind, with a mind as open and vast as space, you will cling to the things that bind you.

And these attachments will hold you down and hinder your thought processes, and so of course, your writing – or your photography, or whatever art form you practice.

I think that operating with a full mind with hamper you in all types of art forms, but I have most noticed it in the realm of fiction.  If you try to force yourself on your characters they balk and become flat.

And a full mind will flatten things until they are lifeless.

If you can bring yourself to the place that says “I don’t know,” you will enjoy the wisdom of a glass half full.  You will be set free of everything you think you know and how it should go.

Thank you very much.

Photocredit: © Ellen Wilson