A touch of the artistic

I decided to build a lightbox a little while back and finally got around to it today. Me and my roomate, Neil, were downtown and I decided to drop by the package (liquor) store to see if they had any boxes they didn't need. On the way there we stopped by CVS. I randomly decided to ask them about boxes and the manager lead me to the backroom where they had hundreds of empty cardboard boxes of all sizes. I picked out a fairly large box that used to have paper towels in it. I brought it back to my dormroom and cut holes in two of the sides and the top - paper would go over them and the lights would shine through there. By the time I got around to looking for more supplies, everything around campus was closed so I couldn't get tracing paper or anything similar. However, I stopped by the library to see if I can score some sheets and they pointed me to a pile of scrap paper where I found a bunch of 17"x11" (swice the size of regular computer paper) sheets. These were the perfect fit for the sides and top, but not nearly big enough to provide a smooth backdrop. Not a big deal though - tonight has been just a trial; I need better lights, a new backdrop, and possibly tracing paper (although those large computer sheets worked fairly well). Setting everything up was a major pain in the neck. I wanted to use my fluorescent desk light but it is attached to the shelf over my desk so I had to move the whole shelf around. The room was a disaster but I think it was worth it. Here are some trial shots:

First, the setup. You can see the shelf with the fluorescent light suspended between our desks, above the lightbox.
I posted this on a forum that I'm on and this was one of the comments: "A motorsports shirt, a messy dorm with a light box, and a major that involves a Ti-83...boy you must be getting all the ladies!"


I was using three light sources - two table lamps and the fluorescent light, so the lighting inside the box was definately on the yellow side :| This is straight from the camera:

This is with some saturation changes and a touch of brightness and contrast:

Straight from the camera:

Edited the saturation a bit (it's not perfect, I know - the buttons are yellow and I didn't want to screw with those):

Saturation-only edit:

Saturation-only edit:

That's all I have right now. This was a pretty fun little project and so far it has cost me $0, although that will change soon (better paper and new lights). I feel like I accomplished something today, even though I got no homework done as a result. Stay put for a dormroom darkroom.

Cheers!