How to Make a Photography Lighting Kit at Home
- 1). Roll out six to eight feet of paper and tape the top to a table or chair to make a backdrop. Let the paper dangle to the floor and cover a three to five foot strip of flooring. Use various colors to accent the object being photographed. This backdrop method helps reduce shadow and creates even lighting for close-up shots of small items.
- 2). Set up two halogen work lamps on stands three to six feet apart and aim them at the subject. These are the most versatile lighting choice and are available at all hardware stores. Halogens are usually between 150 to 500 watts. Most of these lamps usually have some kind of protective wire frame around the bulb housing that you can use to improvise some kind of holder for color gels. Color gels are filters that change the color of the light.
- 3). Replace the incandescent bulb in the clamp-on work lamps with 32K white bulbs. These high-powered bulbs more closely resemble natural white light than incandescent bulbs, which tend to make the subject look pale or yellow. Clamp-on lighting is extremely versatile, and is usually hooded with an aluminum reflector, making it easy to clip on color gel frames.
- 4). Bend thick wire into frames and attach color gels to the frame with cellophane tape for a makeshift gel filter. Use binder clips to mount gels onto the aluminum reflector of clamp-on lamps and to the wire frame around halogen lamp bulbs. Create effects or enhance highlights by adding different color combinations to the lighting.
- 5). Cover circular cardboard with aluminum foil and tape it down to make a reflector. Aluminum foil typically has reflective properties on both sides that are slightly different from one another. Experiment by making several round reflectors each using a different side of foil. Also try out some other ordinary objects as light reflectors, such as a fold-up windshield sunscreen, a piece of whiteboard or a survival blanket, one side with reflective gold and the other with reflective silver.