Readers Projects – The Midas Umbrella Touch

Remember the story about that king from ancient Greek called Midas? Midas was a greedy, greedy king that loved gold more then life itself.

In fact Midas loved gold so much that he prayed the gods to grant him a golden touch. His wish was granted, and now, everything the king touched turned into gold. 

This was quite a party trick with the wooden cup, table cloth and the chicken and apples. Wait a minute, chicken and apples? Yes. Midas could not eat. With his fear of starving to death he prayed the gods again to take his gift away. His new wish was granted. Moral at the and of the post.

So, what do we care about ancient King Midas? We care because it can be nice to change regular 2$ umbrellas into golden reflective or silver reflective umbrellas.

Reader Hans Ning did just that. Using a can of silver chrome spray he painted the back side of a 1$ umbrella to get a nice smooth reflective umbrella.

Click the image on the left to read more and see how Hans connected the umbrella to a lighting fixture and a “hot light”. The great white on the post top was taken with this setup.

The nice thing about this idea is that once it goes out of the can, there is no end to the options that open up. Here are some of my ideas:

• Hot lights are great and cheap, however, if you are using a strobe and need a reflective umbrella – there you go.
• Silver is not the only color that you can us. Highly reflective gold spray paint will work as well and provide a warm look.
• Did you love the California sunbounce? Using a can O’ spray and a foam board, you can crate a similar device. I won’t last as long or be as neat and foldable, but it will give you one more tool in your reflective arsenal.

Back to King Midas. I guess you were wondering for the moral of the story. This depends who you are. The lesson that I took from this story is that using a warming filter again and again will get you starved.

One last thing, make sure you use the correct spray that can stand the wrinkles of the umbrella the good people of Home Depot can help you figure which is the right one.