Photo Tips #5 - Light - Light painting a subject with a slow shutter speed
Today, I am going to do a really brief write up on what you need in order to paint with light. Below, what you will find, is a photograph of my car that I had done in San Francisco using only a few pieces of everyday photography equipment.
What you need:
1. SLR camera (or one that allows you to set a shutter-speed manually)
2. Lens (remember to choose one that is wide enough to fit in your whole subject)
3. Tripod (you need a tripod to reduce camera blur and keep the camera steady while your capturing light)
4. Shutter release. If you buy one with an intervalometer you can do time lapse photography as well. Look at the links below and make sure it is compatible with your camera!
5. Flash Light or a beam of light of any kind (I used the LED Flash on my phone).
6. Studio/any place which may be pitch black.
7. Patience
I drove my car to a very little known place in California that I frequent. Upon parking the car I set up my tripod, fixed the lens that I wanted on, and set the camera to Bulb Mode, if you do not have a shutter release cable or trigger use the longest shutter speed that your camera will allow. The Bulb mode allows the photographer to keep the shutter open as long as he/she requires using a trigger release or the built in shutter button on the camera.
I set the frame for the image I wanted to get and then turned off my cars lights.
Using a remote I opened the shutter up choosing a fstop and ISO high that I had figured would be enough to eliminate everything around the subject that was not exposed to light. You can take a test photograph to make sure that all you see in the camera is pitch black.
Using a my phones light I began painting the car with light, running each part of my light over the car, being careful not to face the camera lens, this exposed the sensor and recorded an image of whatever my flash hit.
After exposing the whole car to my light, I began to draw patterns in the sky behind the car with my flash turned towards the lens. Once I was done it also occurred to me that I could turn the dome lights in the car on to illuminate the interior of the car.
This setup is pretty simple and does not require more than a few attempts before you get it right. The best part of shooting my car was that it was an inanimate object so I did not have to worry about my subject at all.
For the image above, I set my camera on a tripod, opened the shutter up again in bulb mode and simply drew my name with the flash light towards the camera, over the city of San Francisco.
Note: the reason you will not see me in these pictures is because of two reasons.
1. I do not have enough light falling on me to leave an impression on the sensor.
2. The shutter is left opened and therefore it is too slow to capture my movements.
Photo Assignment: This one is easy! Try taking photographs in your apartment/house with the camera on a tripod/table, a long shutter speed, and making shapes/words with your phones LED light.
I hope this tip has helped you figure out how most photographers light paint. If you enjoyed the article, please like it, tweet it, share it.
