Today I thought I would share an easy and cheap DIY project with all my fellow beauty bloggers or any bloggers that takes still life images.
Right about now most UK bloggers will be noticing the lack of bright natural day light, which will only get worse when the clocks go back at the end of October. So anything that will help increase the brightness of photos is pretty handy, especially something that you can create in minutes with items you will probably already have!
A Photographic Light Reflector is used in professional photography to reflect light back on the shadow side of the subject/product you are shooting. These are generally circular and large in size held by an assistant or held at the angle needed with clamps. However for blog photograph when space can be an issue a large reflector isn't that practical so a smaller standing DIY one it is!
As you can see it really is very easy to make and costs under £2 - if that! Once you have created your reflector just place it on the shadow side of your product, out of view. It does however have to be facing the light to reflect any light and will not work with artificial lighting or flash. Below you can see the before and after effects of using a DIY reflector. This just removes most of the shadow making the image brighter, even and also a lot easy to edit.
Tips
- The closer the reflector to the subject the better the results. You can also move it about/angle it to brighten the shadowed side.
- To get the maximum benefits of the reflector make sure to edit the images in a photo editing program - highly recommend Photoscape which you can find on CNET for free.
- You can also use the DIY reflector (or a large piece of A2 card covered with tinfoil) to photograph makeup looks by holding it at chest or waist height and angling it toward the face. This will just brighten the face and remore shadows from the neck area.
As you can see in the un-edited before and after images, above, the DIY reflector removes the shadow from the left hand side of the image, giving a brighter overall effect.
If you are still struggling with lack of natural light you may want to check out my post on 'Better Blog Photography in Autumn/Winter' here.
Hopefully this can be a little weekend project for a few of you!
More DIY projects to come soon.
Fee xo.
