Look Mom, No Shadows!

So I love DIY projects. I have created soft boxes and have fun using them to add soft lighting for portraits and objects. For the picture below, I used one of my favorite tricks but it does require using a couple of friends.

I put a 5 ft cord on my flash and had my wife hold it up on camera left at 45 degrees. I had my sister (who made the cupcakes) hold a piece of a white polyester shower curtain liner 5 inches in front of the flash. It cost me $10 and is one of my favorite ways for adding quick soft light on a an object like this. I arranged them quickly on a cutting board, used a small DOF for some added interest and shot for less than 2 minutes. This one was my favorite. Notice there is only a soft light shadow on the right. No harsh lines here. A direct flash - would have been a much different story. It works because the LARGER the light source, the more even and softer lighting you get.

So why didn't I use a bounce here? Well I used a 50mm prime lens and needed to be close, plus I wanted some shadow, especially on the texture of the icing.

So look what you can get with a flash cable, shower curtain and a couple of friends. Post work: slight saturation increase.