by Steve Meltzer
When photographing your work, the quality of light should be adjusted according to the surface and texture of your subject. It's a yin-yang rule. Soft surfaced material, like fabrics, requires "hard" light to bring out texture, while hard surfaced, shiny objects need soft light -- the kind of light we experience on a bright, overcast day.
It is easy to produce hard, directional light. Most photo lights -- electronic flashes or floodlights -- are hard light sources. But producing a soft uniform light is much more difficult.
Yet soft light is what is needed for a large variety of craftswork like high-glaze pottery, glass, polished jewelry and silverwork.
The way to produce a large, uniformly diffused light source is with a light tent. It is just that -- a little structure (traditionally a tent shape) that you can place the piece into for photographing. The light is on the outside and shines through the tent material.
But despite the many photographic situations that call for highly diffused light, tents are hard to find. In researching dozens of photo supply catalogs, it was rather surprising to find only one commercially produced light tent. This one was about two feet tall and shaped like a tall cone -- imagine a witch's hat -- far too big for jewelry and too pointed for lots of other objects.
I'd been thinking of building a light tent of some sort for a long time when, one day as I was shopping in a large hardware outlet, I found the perfect diffusing material for a light tent structure.
The material is a 2-by-4 foot fluorescent light fixture diffuser panel. These panels come in many surfaces, from smoky white to 'crackled ice' and cost under five dollars. The panels solved many problems for me. Rather than using lightweight, translucent fabrics that tear easily and discolor over time, using plastic panels means this light tent would be a rugged structure that could be used over and over.
The light tent, which looks more like a kind of airplane hanger, is cheap and easy to build, and requires no skill and just two tools -- scissors and a hot glue gun.
I built my light tent out of a single diffuser panel which I cut into several rectangular sections. The first sections I put together were the "floor" and the arch. Hot gluing down the short side of a 36-by-14 inch piece, I gently curved it to make an arch about a foot to a foot and a half high, and then glued down the opposite edge.
The distance between the two glued edges -- marked "A" in the illustration -- is about 24 inches.
Next I glued the "back wall" to the arch and floor, and the tent was complete. The back wall supports the arch and gives the whole structure rigidity.
For shooting jewelry, I built the tent with an arch width -- the "A" length -- of 24 inches. This produces an arch of about 14 inches high by 14 inches deep. These dimensions work well for most jewelry and objects up to about 6 inches tall.
For bigger objects, the arch, floor and back wall could each be made of a single 2-by-4 feet panel. The arch then could have a height of something like 24 inches.
When I'm photographing objects, I tape an 11-by-14 inch sheet of paper to the back wall under the arch. Curving it gently at the point it meets the floor creates a nice seamless background.
If my subject has a very reflective surface, I tape two sheets of tissue paper from the top to bottom across either side of the arch to create a total diffuse light environment. Remember to leave a central space for your camera lens to peek through.
A big advantage of a light tent is that it works with almost any type of light source. The light is hung a foot or two over the arch and, whether it's an electronic strobe or a floodlight, the light is totally diffused by the tent.
This simple structure can radically change the look of your jury slides. Reflective objects will no longer have distracting hot spots, and shiny surfaces will have texture and detail.
At less than $10 for the panels and hot glue, this simple light tent is a cheap yet invaluable photographic tool for craftspeople who shoot their own work.
Steve Meltzer, The Crafts Report's photography columnist, is a Sarasota, Fla.-based photographer.