DIY Light Stand + Homemade Reflectors

I was asked by some of my fel­low 365 group mem­bers to share a lit­tle bit about the home­made light stand I have been using for some of my “ghetto light­ing” assign­ment shots. I have also recently made some reflec­tors so I could par­tic­i­pate in the recent  “ghetto light­ing + reflec­tors” assign­ment. I hope you find the fol­low­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion of DIY photo gear projects use­ful. The above mosaic is a com­pi­la­tion of images show­ing my light stand, reflec­tors and images pro­duced using my home­made gear.

I was most inspired to make a light stand after read­ing this tuto­r­ial. I had been using my hus­bands desk lamp but it unfor­tu­nately broke dur­ing the recent ghetto light­ing assign­ment.  As a home­schooler and crafter, I recy­cle lots of objects. Our com­mu­nity has a won­der­ful site at our county’s waste cen­ter where you can drop off things that you don’t want or may be bro­ken but are still usable. Any­body can take the items left for free. I have found many things that either just needed to be cleaned or have slight repairs done but are still per­fectly usable to me. This saves a lot of things from going to the land­fill since our trash is shipped to a nearby state.

Con­tinue reading »

Filed under crafts, environment, photography | Comment (0)

Congratulations!

I couldn’t resist let­ting out a lit­tle cre­ative energy by mak­ing this col­lage from sev­eral cam­paign fly­ers that had not yet made their way into the paper shred­der. My emo­tions got the bet­ter of me sev­eral times while watch­ing all the cov­er­age of this his­toric event many thought impos­si­ble just a few short months ago and I believe this coun­try is headed to a much bet­ter place. Con­grat­u­la­tions to Barack Obama for win­ning the chance to repair the dam­age. He has a lot of work to do and we still have a duty to keep him on track. Hope­fully we can all unite, stay focused on the tasks at hand and prove the doubt­ful nay-sayers wrong. I am filled with excite­ment to see the re-invention of fam­ily val­ues by the real­is­tic exam­ple por­trayed through Michelle Obama as she becomes mom-in-chief. Also, I finally found some­thing to be thank­ful for regard­ing the cur­rent admin­is­tra­tion, the GOP and the repub­li­can cam­paign ticket for the 2008 pres­i­dency. Since they all screwed up so much both here and abroad, Barack Obama now has the chance he deserves to guide our coun­try to a bet­ter future. I wel­come this change as things def­i­nitely are going to be dif­fer­ent.

Filed under art, crafts, current events, photography | Comment (0)

Doll Craft

Here is a baby doll that was a project com­mis­sioned by my mother in 1978. A co-worker of hers at the time made these baby dolls (the exact name or kind of craft I am not sure of) and my mother had her make them to announce to rel­a­tives she would soon give birth to me. She had a blue one made for my Grand­mother Lucy and this pur­ple one was made for my Grand­mother O’Neal. When I became preg­nant with my first child, I became the lucky recip­i­ent of this lovely doll. She has arms and legs that are attached with large but­tons. Her clothes for the most part are all sewn on. She has an embroi­dered face. I feel very lucky to have received such a great fam­ily heir­loom and am very proud to be able to pass this down to my daugh­ter when her time comes to start a family.

Filed under crafts, family, photography | Comment (0)