DIY Photo Light Box for Your Art Portfolio
Professional quality images are highly important for your artist portfolio, website, and social media – and building your own photo light box can upgrade the quality of images. This course will show you how to build a large, lightweight photo light box that you can disassemble and pack away when it’s not needed.
How To Make a Photo Light Box: this light box is made from PVC pipe and can be taken apart for storage or travel. It’s cheap (around $75-85 including the lights), strong, and easy to build. I’ll be working with 3/4″ pipe because it’s strong and will support the weight of my sculptures. For smaller photo light boxes that won’t hold much weight, you can use smaller sized pipe.
This light box can be any size you want. The most important thing is that you have:
- 4 pipes of the same length for height
- 4 pipes of the same length for width
- 4 pipes of the same length for depth
- 4 elbows
- 12 t-junctions
- 8 small 1.5″ pipes for connecting larger pieces
- Optional – 4 pipes of the same length to raise the height of the light box (if you are using a tripod to take pictures, this will raise the light box to any height that you require to take the pictures straight on so your pictures will not be skewed).

You’ll also need some wood for the platform that your artworks will sit on, some work lamps or other lighting, and of course your camera setup. I used (2) 2″x10″ boards cut to 34″ (the pipes they sit on will be 32.5″ apart). If you don’t have access to a table saw or other means, you likely can have the store (Lowe’s, Menards, etc.) cut the wood and pipe for you.