I'm starting to experiment with food photography and I would like to
improvise a soft box lighting without actually buying a soft box.

Would a piece a paper covering a flashlight or a spotlight suffice?
Any suggestions?



The main point of studio light modifiers isn't to put something between the
flash and subject, it isn't really just something more to sell you, to make
you look cool.

the point is to make a very small light source, the flash tube, seem much
larger. a tube with minimal reflector is a very tiny and harsh light
source. they used metal reflector bowls cause in the very early days of
photography you needed every little bit of light energy to be concentrated
and even focused (fresnel lensed spot lights) cause photofloods were
relatively weak, film and lenses slow. with flash power we can blast
through walls (well I exaggerate) but the thing is, with even a basic
monoflash you can hang a sheet a translucent white fabric from the ceiling
and shoot a light through and get the effect of a very very large softbox.
the back half of a softbox is just a way to make it more efficient, again to
avoid wasting all that light splashing around, to reflect it back to the
subject.

you make scrims by taking that fabric and taping it over some pvc pipe, get
two lengths 10 feet long (standard size) and cut 6.5 feet so you now have a
6.5 x 3.5 rectangle, use 4 90' corners and you have a framed scrim panel.
run a stretch cord through the pipes and you will have enough strength to
hold it together yet be able to pull it apart for packing and keep the loose
pieces tied together.

the cloth can be found in most fabric stores, called sports nylon.

general rule of thumb is that a light source should be twice as big as the
subject. I try and try to convince portrait photogs of this.