Reflectors

I have a shop that I found from my dear friend Katrina, and they sell photography lights, back drops and other things and are very reasonably priced.  I have bought some studio lights from them and some backdrops.  I plan on buying some more lights from them soon when I have a little more money in my pay pal account.  :)   The store is called Cowboy Studio  they also sell reflectors and some day I plan on purchasing some.  For now I don't have the cash. SOOOOOOOO  why not make your own?  Last year I made one and have hardly used it because I miss placed it when I moved.  Now I dug it back out and have been using it a little bit.  Check out how easy this is to do.

Everyone has seen the foam boards right?  I get mine at the Dollar Tree because, well...they are only a dollar.  haha  I use these when photographing things for my craft blog or when taking pictures of products for my etsy site ( not my photography one because I have two ).  I place items on the foam board and behind them for a white blank canvas.  It works great.  Did you know you can also use them to make your own reflector?  

Take the foam board and a box cutter and slice it done the center BUT don't cut alllll the way through both sides.

See how you can now fold the foam board in half but it is still attached as one piece?

Next you want to take foil and wrap it around the foam board on one side.  my foil wasn't wide enough to cover the whole thing so I had to do two strips of foil.  Tape around the sides on the back

And that is pretty much it!  Now you have a cool/ghetto reflector for WAY cheap and it folds to help bounce the light off.  I used this when doing senior pictures for Faith and Lura.  It was overcast and in on of the shots I was doing of Faith I had the "sun" behind her and she has brown eyes. We used the reflector and it shown TONS on light in her eyes and on her face.  Can you tell?

I also used this reflector the other day when I was doing my self portrait.  Just remember that it depends on what kind of lighting you want on your subject.  Sometimes shadows on the face are good and sometimes they are not.  Just be aware of the look you are going for and make it happen!  Now go make a ghetto but cool 2 dollar reflector and go take some pictures!