Make Your Own Lightbox

Jason Parnell-Brookes shows you a quick-and-easy way to build your own light-table to take backlit images of translucent subjects like leaves

- Jason Parnell-Brookes

Light tables are designed to illuminate a subject from behind and are used for a variety of purposes, from arts and crafts to tattooists tracing designs – or photographers shooting close-ups.

You can buy ready-made light tables and they vary in price, with some reaching hundreds of pounds. However, it doesn’t take a fancy setup to get fancy backlit photographs, and you can build your own for next to nothing. Take an old cereal box, for instance; this can be our base for a light table. Cut a hole in the front of it, stick some translucent material over said hole, (we used greaseproof paper) and then feed fairy lights in behind.