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From time to time I'm asked by people who have just bought their first DSLR camera what equipment they should buy next. Most people are keen to buy more lenses, but I rarely recommend that. In my opinion when you are first starting up on photography you get most bang for the buck if you buy a flash with a rotatable head so that you can manipulate the light and create indirect light. Build in pop-up flashes will usually produce picture like any point and shoot camera, and then why bother spending the extra money on a decent DSLR if it is not going to give you higher quality pictures? If the first step on the latter is getting a flash with a rotatable head to create indirect light, then the next step is to move the flash off the camera. Of you have the flash off the camera you will want to mount it somewhere - on a stand that comes with most flashes these days, on a tripod or have someone hold it. A good all-round solution is to have a clam where the flash can be mounted on. Clams are versatile and on many locations it is easy to find good places to put them - cupboards, book stands, branches, etc. In this article I'll go through the building of such a clam.