How to Make Stunning Fake Sunlit Photos – Cheap and Easy.

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Natural light… universally praised as the king of lighting and a wonderful experience to be in, too. We all know this, and we all know that there’s nothing more frustrating than when you’ve got a killer product in front of you and just cannot get a decent picture of it to save your life. Today I’m here to help you remove ‘lighting’ from your list of culprits so that your work can have it’s time in the su– er, limelight. I’m trying really hard not to make sun-puns here.

Please note that this is an effect that I’ve only ever tested on a small scale — I have no idea how this would fare under larger circumstances (if you try it, let me know how it went!). But! Being able to pull this off is an amazing trick to have up your sleeve that anybody taking product photos absolutely needs. There are so many reasons why you might want to create your own fake sunlight for photos:

• You’re on a deadline (or impatient) and need those photos now… and it’s 10pm
• You don’t have easy access to natural lighting to begin with
• You want the freedom to do your photoshoot whenever you please
• You’re just not very good at manipulating natural light — Nature is finicky!

In any case, this basement-dwelling, nighttime-working fellow here has your back. And in case you’re not convinced, please allow me to show you an example photo that I took under my faux-sun setup:

There are also a handful of photos peppered around my site that I took this way, at night, no less. I wonder how many you could find… Anyway! You possibly already have a lot of these things at home — I spent $2 on this entire setup since I already had most of it.

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You will need:

• Your surface – preferably a light-hue such as a pine wooden table, white paper or sheet… the list can be extensive. I also use scrapbook paper to break things up and add interest.
• A lightbulb labeled “daylight”, I found mine for $2 at Walmart
• A lamp to screw your new lightbulb into (I use a desk lamp with a poseable neck)
• A sheer piece of fabric or a white piece of paper (a white lampshade could work as well, if you move things around for the right angle)
• A large, flat white something to use as a reflector / blocker of other light sources. I used a large canvas but you can get creative with this.
• Something for your backdrop like a large piece of paper, a cutting board… you can get away with a lot with some creativity, or you can definitely get away with darkness like this:

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Assembly:

It’s fairly straightforward, really. The first thing I like to do is style my product in the center of the surface. That way, I can see just how much wiggle room I have in any direction before the photo I take would capture off-stage. If you’re like me, don’t worry yourself too much about how it’s styled because you’re going to change it a dozen times throughout the shoot anyways. You just want to have an idea of how much space you’ll need.

The next step is to place your lamp– I encourage you to play with distances with your light source to figure out where it needs to be. My desk lamp has to be pretty close to the stage because the hood causes the light to focus in one direction. If you find yourself dealing with a glare (and it’s likely you will, with a light being so close and possibly focused directly at your subject), please scroll down a bit to the “troubleshooting” list.

Determine what, if any, your backdrop will be and place that where it needs to be. At this point you’ll be able to start really composing your photo until you figure out what will work.

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Troubleshooting:

• I have another light source that’s messing me up!
  • – Use the “large, flat white something” to block it. You’ll quite likely need extra hands for this. Alternatively, you can hang a white sheet from the ceiling in between you and the offending light.
• My shadows are too harsh
  • – Use the “large, flat white something” as a reflector – prop it up (or make somebody else hold it) on the opposite side of your stage. There are also a lot of articles out there about different DIY reflectors — this is just the easiest and cheapest
• I can’t seem to get the glare under control
  • Use your sheer fabric or piece of paper. You can drape the fabric over the light if you have a way of keeping it out of direct contact with the bulb or you can hold the paper between the light and subject – again, play with distances and how much of the light you choose to obscure in this way.

Above: a photo taken without a reflector ; taken with a reflector ; the setup used.

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The future is bright!

Here are the results of two more photos that I took while working on this post (and there’s one more waaaay at the bottom):

Now that you’ve got a new tool in your awesome-artist-photographer toolbox, congrats! I’d love to know how it worked out for you down in the comments — I bet some of you have already thought of ways to make this method even better.

In a few days, I’ll be following up by talking about the photo styling mistakes you’re probably making and I don’t want you to miss it! Follow me on Instagram or Facebook and you’ll be the first to know when new content drops.

And as always, thank you for coming by for my tutorial! Follow your heart, chase those dreams and eat your vegetables~

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