I built this light while watching coverage of Hurricane Ike’s landfall last September… I’ve had several people ask me about my lighting setup lately, so I thought I’d post this to my blog. It has become one of my favorite lights to use lately, so it is important to other setups I will show in the coming days.

I’d been using this light in the studio for a while.. mostly for headshots, but I was thinking that what I really needed was a strip light or two… so instead of paying a couple hundred for one, I thought I’d see what I could do…. so here we go….

a 44 inch wooden flower box $20

6 bulb “Bath Bar” with a chrome backing $19.92

a Wall Switch $6.97

Light duty cord $6.97

6 Daylight Balanced, 100W equiv 5500K temp cf bulbs $6.97 each

Plus misc supplies of spray paint, foil, glue… total came to just under $110 with tax.

I painted it black so it would look a little more finished.. although it probably could have used another coat. The one can of spray paint covered it, but the wood was very pourous… then lined the inside with aluminum foil.

Drilled a hole in the middle of the back to pass the wires from the vanity bar through.. and attached the switch with the power cord at that spot.. being careful to ground the wire properly.

Switch it on…

Lessons learned…

I probably could have used a few cheaper pieces.. light sockets for instance, which would have required more wiring (to each socket), but would also have allowed me the possibility to individually switch the sockets (at a higher cost for a multi-switch)… but I liked the bath bar solution for me in this case.

I probably could have gone with a cheaper switch and cord, too.. but I don’t like to skimp when it comes to electricity.. it makes me nervous. LOL

Paint.. well, I already said I probably should have given it a second coat.. but I was impatient and wanted to get it working.

Oh.. and before you start something like this that requires you to do a quick drill job… make sure your drill is with you and not at the studio.

Samples…

Using a horizontal configuration.. subject on the floor, light below and leaning slightly upward toward her.

The shot from Friday of Katharine was shot with the strip light in the same configuration, only with the commercial light I linked to above as a hair/rim light.. like this:

If this proves popular, I will share more in the future..

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