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RSSThursday, April 8, 2010
Building a Light Box for my Etsy Shop
With just 15 or 20 minutes of browsing on Etsy, you can get a good idea of what good photos look like and the bad ones. If two items are comparable and one has a better photo, that's the one the customer is going to buy.
My husband mentioned that I should build a light box to get good looking photos for my Etsy shop. Honestly, I'd never heard of a light box before. Basically, what it does is it can create a well-lit photo on a white backdrop. Nice, sharp and pretty images.
So I set off online, looking how to build a homemade light box. I used this website as a base, but made a few variations. I used an orange box that I lined with white poster board--mine's much smaller than the one shown. I did use white tape. I only bought two lights (from Lowe's hardware store) and didn't permanently attach them to the box.
This is what my completed light box looks like:
Step 1: create light box. Check.
Step 2: be semi-competent at taking photos.
I admit, I am not an experienced photographer. I typically just let other people take the photographs--my mom and my husband especially like taking photographs. That's always been fine--until now. I have a very loving husband, but that doesn't mean I should tax him with taking 300 photos for me.
I had the light box, but I took awful photos--basically, it didn't look like I used a light box at all. It turned out terribly!
Proof:
There's about 300 more where that came from. Don't worry--I'll spare you.
One of my friends, who runs an online business with her husband (selling cool miniatures-- you should check them out) gave me some recommendations, and even volunteered to let me borrow her light box if I couldn't make my homemade one work.
What with my friend's suggestions, my husband's patience, Google, and sheer luck, I managed to make my (husband's) camera AND my light box work!
So, some comparisons. (The light box ones are the ones that look better....no labels necessary):
Yes, my new photos aren't perfect, but they're so much better. Life just is so much better when things look beautiful!
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