Painting with Light

One of the REALLY COOL things you can do with your camera is record light! Let’s try making a print with this technique.

Formula: Dark-space + low shutter speed (under 1/30) + light source = Fun Times

Optional: Tripod (to get focused / non-blurry images)

Create 1 successful image with a digital camera that explores the painting with light technique. You will need to take the same image with several different settings in order to successfully record the image. Be patient, experiment, play, and try different settings to see what happens.

Take a look at the website linked below for some ideas and inspiration:
Link: Painting with Light Examples

Light Painting…PIC BY REGIS MATTHEY / CATERS NEWS – (PICTURED Light painting of two men fighting on a beach in New Zealand) A photographer has brought a series of pictures taken in the middle of the night to life – by using spectacular light paintings to outline imaginary people. In one scene an empty playground becomes filled with excitable children and in another a basketball court is lit up with a player preparing to take aim. Swiss photographer Regis Matthey, 25, creates his art using a long exposure shot meaning he only has several seconds to draw the paintings before the camera shutter closes. And despite his stunning results Regis, who captured the images at various locations near the Swiss town of La Vallee de Joux, insists you only need basic equipment to create such work. SEE CATERS COPY

Tips:

  • Aperture needs to be the highest setting possible (f22 or f29)
  • Use a slower shutter speed of 1/30 or lower.
  • Use a tripod
  • Use a flashlight, phone light, or laser pointer as light source
  • Being in a dark room will yield best results. (if your room is too bright, the slow shutter speed will also record all the light in the room; your image will be white)
  • Try recording light around a still subject, like an object or person.
  • Record the same image with different shutter speeds to get different effects.
  • Move the camera around in different directions to record light that already exists (great for street lamps, house lights,  fireworks, candle flames, fires, sparklers at night)

Editing: Using Photoshop (SIMPLE trick!)

Use Levels or Hue/Saturation to colourize and add some oomph to your photograph

Left: Original.
Right: pPhotoshopped

Using Levels and Hue / Saturation.