Last year I had a shoot where I made this wooden table for food photography. This year the client contacted me again for another shoot. While on our way to the initial brief meeting I was thinking what I can do for this shoot to make it special. Then it hit me, I would light this shoot with a beautiful window light. Sadly, my concept has some trouble as I did not have a well lit window facing where I needed at the time of the shoot. OK, why don’t I “Create” a window, full with window light. Not shoot near a window or shoot using a light from a window, but actually create my won window where I would have total control. a window with light. In this article I’ll show you how I Created my own window (and window light).
Materials:
- Plywood
- Saw
- Drill or hammer
- Screws or nails
- Paint or Vinyl sticker
How To:
I only had one night to build it because the shoot was the next day so I did the best that I can do for that night.
1. The first thing I did was cut a 4 by 8 plywood in threes to get it to fit inside my car. I cut the length into two 3 by 4 pieces, and one 2 by 4 piece (all in feet). I used the two 3 by 4 pieces as the main window walls. I opted to use 2 small pieces and not just one big 6 feet piece because I would have a hard time transporting the wall to the location of the shoot.
2. The next step was measuring the “hole” and the frames of the window.
3. I first tried cutting the plywood manually but it was taking too long and it was getting darker so I used a jigsaw instead. (I didn’t want to use the jigsaw in the first place because the blade was crooked but I had no choice 🙂
I used the extra piece of 2×4 plywood to make the frames of the window and the cross.
Here is rough sketch of how I cut my wood and the placement of the frames.
4. After cutting the hole and making the frames I put them together using nails.
5. The shoot was the next day so I didn’t use paint for the finish of the window and wall because of the smell it would make. Instead, I used some left over white vinyl sticker to color the wall.
6. My main plan was using acrylic sheet which I use for a scrim, but the size was too small so I used parchment paper for the window.
7. To combine the two pieces of wood together I got some left over plywood and just screwed the two pieces in place. This is not very reusable, but the cost was very low anyways.
8. I placed two 9 feet lightstands on the sides of the wall and used clamps to mount the window in place.
The final Setup looked like this.
Thats to my Brader, Jayjay De Guzman for assisting. Also the GF that is not in the shot
Samples Photos:
You can play with it, here I was using the reflection of the window
And using the wooden table:
