How to make your very own Light box

Light boxes are a great little tool that every photographer should experiment with at least once. They are most often used as a light diffuser because they can create a soft even light that fully covers the subject, and they can be used with both natural and artificial light. Here’s a quick and easy tutorial on how to create your own light box from a few simple materials that you probably have scattered around at home. It’s cheap, it’s quick, it’s portable and even the most inexperienced photographer can get great results from using it!

Ingredients (not materials, Ingredients!):
1 sturdy box (corrugated cardboard or something similar)
Several sheets of white paper (to diffuse the light)
White or coloured card (for the infinite wall)
1 Craft knife, 1 pair of scissors, 1 pencil, 1 ruler, glue/tape
1 kitten (not strictly necessary, but entertaining all the same)

Step One:
Take your ruler and pencil and mark out a rectangle window on three sides of the box. Make sure you leave some supporting cardboard for each rectangle so that when you go to cut it your box doesn’t become too weak and flimsy. We don’t want flimsy. In this case, I used the width of my ruler as a guide.

Step Two:
Take your craft knife and carefully cut out your windows. If you are using corrugated cardboard, you’ll need a sharp blade. Be careful not to cut yourself OR your kitten, who has probably discovered by now that the box is fun to play in.

Step Three:
Carefully Pop out all the windows you have cut and keep the pieces, they will act as a template for the light diffusers. By now your box should look like this:
And your kitten will probably be using it as a catwalk ♥

Step Four:
Take your cardboard cut outs (if you can get them back from the kitten) and trace an outline slightly (2-3cm) bigger than they are on your white paper. Then tape or glue them over the windows on the outside of the box. You should now have something that looks like this:

Step Five:
Finally take your white or coloured card and trim it to fit along the longest inside edge of your box. This will act as your infinity wall and will make your subject look as if it is floating. Carefully tape or glue it to the back wall of your box. Make sure you don’t fold or ripple it too much, or it will ruin the floating effect. You should have something that looks a bit like this:

That’s it! You’re Done! Now all you need to do is to set up some lamps at the sides and top of your light box, or just pop it in a brightly lit area and you can start experimenting. I’d love to see some of the things you can do with it so be sure to post a link with your images in the comments! ♥ Here are some of the shots I’ve made with a light box in the past:



And here are some more lighbox shots from around dA:
by ~suricata5
by ~shmegs85