The two best forms of candy in the world (or, at least, in my world) are candy corn and M&Ms. Candy Corn is more often becoming available year-round, with the addition of various holiday themes other than Halloween (Reindeer Corn for Christmas, Cupid Corn for Valentine’s Day, and Bunny Corn for Easter), but they’re still primarily a holiday treat, lacking the year-round goodness of M&Ms.
Not long after we started dating, Prairie picked up on my M&Ms fixation, and got me a silly little M&Ms character. Since then, we’ve gotten into the habit of keeping an eye out for cute M&M goodies, from the seasonal figures to plush toys to…well, whatever looks fun. I’ve been meaning to document the growing collection for some time now, and finally got around to it today, after spending a few minutes and fifty cents assembling a DIY lightbox (inspired by this post on Strobist).
Click on this lil’ guy to see the M&M Army as it stands to date.
I’m really impressed with how well the lightbox setup works. It’s incredibly simple: just a cardboard box with three sides cut out and covered with white tissue paper. Slip posterboard into the box for a backdrop, set a flash unit (or lamps of some sort) outside the sides of the box, and fire away. Simple, effective — and at $0.50 for the posterboard, with the rest of the supplies scrounged from around the house, much more cost effective than a pre-assembled $100 kit that does the same thing!
“Rules” by K.M.F.D.M. from the album XTORT (1996, 4:07).
Very cool idea! Although, in the case of these particular shots, it comes off a bit dull (it looks like you used white posterboard instead of grey… perhaps my monitor just needs proper calibration)
Have you ever been to the M&M World in Las Vegas, on the south end of the Strip (near the MGM Grand)?
What an illuminating idea !
I’m working on putting together a photo ‘cookbook’ and wanted a way to shoot the finished plates of food. I’ll need something slightly larger than this but the construction will be the same I’ll just use a bigger box. Thank you.
And I see the grayness Ryan is talking about and in these photos it doesn’t matter on bit. I think the grayness is due to using just one light source or having the exposure off just a bit. Easy enough to take care of in PhotoShop or Apeture if one cared.