Tips for Lighting your picture shoots.

• The least expensive and simple way (about $20 – $40 dollars) – Go to Home Depot and get those little $10.00 clamp on painting lights. You know, they are just these little metal tins with clamps on them. Then purchase 75 – 100 watt GE REVEAL light bulbs. Use those to illuminate the scene you are shooting. Also, use the flash on the camera. Set you camera’s light balance to daylight. I would put the GE Reveal bulbs in all your home light fixtures. With the Camera flash try taping a piece of white tissue over the flash to soften the harsness of it.
• The more expensive and better way (about $120 – $150) – Get an extra flash. In photographer terms this is called “slave” flash. You put this flash on a tripod and then bounce all the white light off of the ceiling to illuminate the scene/room. This you can get at any professional grade photo supply store in the town you live in or online. Here is the place to get it online http://www.bhphotovideo.com/ this is the best camera shop in the world.  This setup will give you EXCELLENT and very flexible portable lighting: Vivitar 285HV Professional Auto Shoe Mount Flash (Guide No.120′/37 m at 35mm)* Wein HS Hot Shoe Slave (150′ Range) – for Digital Camera Systems
• Inexpensive Umbrella / Lightbox System: Here is example of what I’m talking about
• This applies to either solution above. Understand your camera the best you can. Practice taking pictures with the white balance set to different settings to see how the pictures come out in your house. Generally with a nice flash you can set the white balance to “daylight”. This is because once the external flash fires it will be like daylight. Any artificial external light you use should generally be reflected at you from the ceiling or wall that is close to white in color. Shining the light directly at you can be “harsh” on your skin tones. A good way to practice is to get a couple of stuffed animals … I’d suggest a white one and redish one. The set them up in different scenarios. Practice with the stuffed animals and then you can see if the colors turn out right.