A box in a box

I’d read quite a bit about the ‘studio in a box’ on the web over Christmas. It seemed a very good idea! You get a lightweight portable wire framed tent structure covered in a translucent fabric that can diffuse the lights shone onto it. And you get a series of coloured infinity backdrops so you can change the look. The idea is that you place whatever you wish to photograph in the box and then you can control both the ‘noisy’ background and the shadows falling onto what your subject is. I’d only seen this for sale in the US and they came with photographic lights which I suspected would not work well with our extra powerful electricity. However last week, I discovered a very reasonable priced one in the UK and I thought I’d definitely give it a go.

And today it turned up in a little disc shaped case that now my light box tent thingy has sprung out of I am fairly confident that I can never get it back into again. Well, not without damaging myself!

This picture of a box of partially used quail eggs is my first attempt at using it. I need to play around with the backdrops and lighting but I think it could be very interesting tool to enhance my food photography. It is currently sat on my spare room bed as I cannot work out how to fold it again to get it back into the itty bitty case from whence it came (that's the black round case in front if the tent).

I guess if someone come to stay I either persuade them to sleep in the tent, perhaps not a good idea, or find a way to get it to de-construct itself and no, it didn’t come with instructions unfortunately!

Update: I found a great site that explains how to shrink my tent to fit back into its case again but it makes a reference to 'making a giant taco' and as I've never made a taco of any size, I still need to work on this. But I got it to go flat already a useful skill; I just need to master the rolling stage!