The LukeSphere Light Modifier

The best inspiration comes from desperation and exasperation.  I was exasperated to see that photographers were paying $60 or more to buy a piece of Tupperware from a nationally-known photographer that they could put over their flashes to modify and soften their camera-mounted hot shoe flashes.  I know that real Tupperware cost a lot less than that, and I knew that there was an even better alternative that would do exactly the same thing for a lot less Andrew Jacksons donated from my wallet.

In several of the DIY photography equipment blogs that I follow, I saw someone suggest that the treasure of which I sought could be made from a Far East version of a food container that was “not” Tupperware”.  I was all for this, because it did not involve having to pay usage fees for the trademarked and registered name-brand plastic containers.

 I found myself at my local craft store, which, in Upstate New York, happens to be Michaels.  I paid $1.95 for a regulation-size frosted plastic version of a Chinese food container.  This was my jumping off point.  Do not grab a used container from the back of your refrigerator! First of all, it is opaque cardboard, and the pools of soy sauce will wreak havoc on the electronics of your flash.   I snipped off the metal wire handle and stapled the side pieces together so they would stay together, which was the secondary function of the handle, besides the obvious use.

Because the slick plastic on the container is so much like the slick surface of the plastic on a hot shoe flash, there had to be a way to prevent the modifier from falling off the flash every 3 seconds.  Because of this, I took a square piece of black craft foam….also purchased at Michaels…and hot-glued it to the bottom of the food container.  The craft foam provided enough friction to keep the modifier on the flash.  Once the glue had dried, I placed the head of the flash on the craft foam and traced the outline of the rectangular head on the foam.  Using a sharp utility knife, I sliced an opening from corner to corner of the rectangle, resulting in an “X’ shaped opening.  The flash could be pushed into this opening, and the craft foam provided friction and prevented it from falling off the flash until it was intentionally pulled off.

This would have been all well and good, but I was not satisfied until it was more functional.  I had a bare bulb modifier in my camera bag for my Quantum flash, which is a semi-circular gold-colored reflector which is placed behind the bulb, thus reflecting light forward that would have gone backwards, warming the light in the process.  After all, what good is the light that falls behind a photographer, out of the range of the camera?  I decided to incorporate this idea into my overseas hot shoe flash modifier.  I cut a piece of white cardboard that fit the back wall of the modifier, and lightly dusted one side of the cardboard with gold spray paint.  I then affixed a small piece of hook-and-loop tape (rhymes with “Melcro”) on the back wall of the modifier, and a corresponding mating piece on both faces of the cardboard reflector.  This reflector can be placed in or out at will, and I can use the white side or the gold side of the cardboard, depending on the effect that I want.

Voila!  For less than $2, I had made a bare-bulb attachment for a hot shoe flash that had more functionality than your average piece of over-priced plastic food containment vessel.  I use this modifier most often as a background light, when I need the hot shoe flash to throw light in all four lateral directions and up (or three lateral directions, if the reflecting cardboard is used).

For the attached portrait image, I placed this HS Senior in the door frame in front of a stairwell.  I’m sure this staircase descended directly to Hell…it was the steepest and darkest stairwell I had ever seen.  So, I did what any self-respecting photographer would do…I sent my unknowing assistant down into the dark, spider web-covered stairwell with the appropriately-outfitted flash on the top of a light stand.  The flash also had an orange gel taped to it’s head, to warm up the dark and dank red brick.  The light modifier was up to the task, lighting the pitch-black stairwell into a nice, warm, glowing, and inviting stairway to Hell.  Not bad for $2.00 and 15 minutes of construction time.  And it surely eased my exasperation.