The woes of working with a homemade lightbox

As promised (okay, 4 months later - sorry!), I am here to report that finding lamps to fit those darned bulbs, which wouldn't cost the earth, was a painful process!

In the end, I settled on 3 of these beauties!

and one of these:

Ordered from The Lightworks (from one of the only suppliers I could find that confirmed the lamps were suitable for ES bulbs)at the lowest price I could find for £10.97each for the black and £19.97 for the white.

Note: The taller white lamp was ordered for behind the photobox to hover over the top for downlighting.

I gave up on finding the clip-on desk lamps because none seemed to have a big enough shade diameter or none would/could confirm.

Got 3 in total and ended up with this setup (insert picture here).

As for the pictures that resulted from the light box, they left much to be desired!!! No amount of hue/saturation editing in photoshop could get these babies light enough.

 

So, back to the drawing board. I figured there wasn't enough light.  So, I ended up ordering two more lamps to increase the brightness. Results as follows:

As you can see, they are an improvement, but when I photograph lighter coloured and white objects I still have some serious issues. You can see that the white and light pink suffer the most.

I'm not sure if I am drowning too much light now? 
Would a coloured background paper be better to bring out the object more? 
Where else can I put lamps to backlight the object?  I have such a small photobox, I fear needing to make a larger one!

All the blue, green and yellow items look pretty good for beginner's standards.  I am just not happy with the pink and white.  Looks like I'll be posting updates on this matter in the future!

For the time being, they will suffice.

Visit to Lacock Village and Pottery

Over Easter Weekend, Joe and I planned a trip to Bristol, hitting various National Trust sites (click here to see my blog about the cool properties we have visited) along the way.

We rolled up in one village arguing that it sounded vaguely familiar but not sure why.

Lacock, voted the prettiest village in England at some point (or so Joe told me!).

Then it dawned on us - we had been here before with my Grandparents when they were visiting around Easter last year! Before, our visit was on a very unforgiving day weather-wise and we had collapsed into a fabulously warm, welcoming pub all toasted up with roaring fire and drool inducing homemade dishes. It was dark and rainy that day, but I remember seeing a pottery sign which upon further inspection, revealed a quite gallery space closed for that day.

So, little did we realise that the National Trust's Lacock Abbey was indeed in the same place as that fab pub and village we stumbled upon before.

This time, full daylight with cloud greeted us as we drove in, but the village was buzzing with littl-in's and parents on an early Easter Egg hunt through the streets and businesses in the village. And guess what, that pottery was open!

Take a look at this grand and beautiful property! Believe it or not, it is David McDowell's pottery, gallery cum bed and breakfast all in one!

As we stepped into the gallery space, David was walking up the back steps from his pottery to greet us visitors. After introducing myself, he graciously offered to show us around!

David was so busy, but spent over an hour showing us around and making us feel so welcome. We found out that over 20 years ago, he had to apply to the National Trust to live in this building, taking it over from the previous dweller, Robert Fournier (yeah, the man who wrote that awesome Pottery Dictionary that I love)!!!! Most of it was is in shambles and he restored it during every bit of limited free time that he had while running pottery classes to make the dosh! (Forgive me if I got this wrong David!!)

The location is superb, across from this amazing church, just at the end of the village road.

His kiln building out back was derelict when he moved in and it now houses a handmade massive gas kiln and quite an impressively organized wall system of props and shelves (the envy of any potter really!).

The icing on the cake for me was his big ole pottery in the lower ground of the house (under the gallery which the steps lead up to in the photo below) and all the fab pottery scattered around his B&B. He has Wally Keeler, John Maltby, and many others all just hanging out together on shelves - cool, eh?!

Here's Joe, David and the rhubarb!

He showed us around the house and then asked if we wanted to come to his allotment to pick up fresh rubarb and rocket for dinner that night. Well, if the set-up wasn't making me drool already, come on - how much more idyllic can this get!

It can! The allotment happened to be at the end of a path winding around the church beyond a lovely stone wall and locked wooden door. And check out that rubarb! My Aunt Rose would be so envious!

Needless to say, I had effectively died and gone to heaven in that afternoon. I had found my utopia....Joe was a little giddy too, although not convinced about my sudden desire to be a B&B owner...

I just cannot thank David enough for being so great to us! His pots, rhubarb and B&B are all fab!

Anyone interested in staying, here is his website. Well worth the visit! Lacock itself is pretty much smack between Bristol and London, close to Bath and very lovely countryside.

Did we even make it to the Abbey - nah, but who cares! What an afternoon!