Light Painting

     Last night me and a friend went into my backyard to take some colorful and exciting photos. Earlier that day, I came across a very interesting video showing photos taken with a technique called "light painting." I had seen these types of images in TV commercials and ads before but I was never sure how they were made. In this video the photographer was showing how he was using light painting to advertise an alcohol brand. What I found interesting was that he said he made his own lights just to get the effect he wanted and focused on bringing out the amber color of the liquid with the light. His pictures came out incredible and this got me interested in seeing what else you could do with light painting.

(Don't drink alcohol)

    After watching a couple videos and looking at some examples online I decided that I was going to try this out myself that night. After the sun went down and the yard was near pitch black, we went out and played around with light painting. To do it, I set the camera's shutter speed to 13-30 seconds depending on the image and set the flash to first curtain. This means the flash goes off when you click the shutter button. When the flash goes off, this reveals the subject and the background. After the flash I went behind the subject and moved LED lights (flashlights and headlamps) to create streaks of color. Because there is never light shining directly on me, I don't show up in the picture. 

    Taking images of the chair was a little more complicated. To only reveal the chair and give an interesting lighting effect beneath it, I used a flashlight and lit the chair carefully. I then went behind and created the streaks by pointing the light directly at the lens of the camera.

    Although it was cold out and took several tries to get it right, I think the pictures came out great and we had a lot of fun. I think it is definitely a technique that I will use often in the future because there are so many ways to be creative with it. Here are some of the images I took.

(Click to see larger)