Sunday, April 22, 2018

Handy Lighting For LEGO Shots

One of the fun things I enjoy with photography is finding creative uses for  cheap objects for use in making my images.  So as you can imagine I was thrilled when I was walking past the "free stuff" shelf at work and came across a pair of these:


This is a desktop microphone stand.  Handy for holding ones microphone.  However I immediately saw something else - it would be handy to hold a tactical flashlight, and make a miniature light stand for my LEGO photography.

I use tactical flashlights all the time in my work, but it is challenging and sometimes annoying to have to find ways to hold the lights in the perfect angle.  This seemed like the perfect solution. So I grabbed the stands, and when I arrived home I tried to fit one of my flashlights into them:

Perfect fit!

Now, to see if they work as light stands:

Fantastic! These will work out well.

Spoiler alert: I've actually been using this pair for over 9 months now.  I was reminded of them when someone put a third stand in the "free stuff" shelf, which I immediately grabbed.  So I decided to share the idea with you fine folk.

To give an idea of how useful an overhead flashlight can be, I used these stands + flashlight combo to make the following shots:

As you can see they can be the foundation for some excellent and dramatic lighting.

I found the stands I use on amazon, and they cost $8 new on Amazon. If you are curious, these are the flashlights I use (4 for $16).

So thats my handy lighting system that has been powering my work for a while now.  One system of  many actually, but it has proven effective for me.  If you have any lighting strategies for your own toy work, I'd love to hear about em.  Drop them in the comments below.