The Wonders of Light Painting

Lighting painting trumps normal painting.

It just does.

One, it's a lot easier.

Two, it doesn't require much talent, just patience. :)

What is light painting you ask?

Light painting is where you take a long exposure at night. During this exposure someone does something with a light source in front of the camera.

The result?

Beautiful trails of light. :) And the description is vague because so much can be done with light painting. You can use a flashlight, a phone, a phone with a flashlight app, fire ((haven't tried this yet...it's kind of scary)), or any other light source that your mind can come up with.

For these photos I made use of this amazing tripod that I found in the back of our closet. :D And here I thought I was gonna have to buy one...;) I set the ISO to the lowest possible, and put my exposures anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds. I didn't make use of the bulb setting simply because everything I wanted to do was feasible during 30 seconds.

I was bound and determined to create a little stick figure holding a little light saber. But light painting can be tricky, and requires a lot of trial and error. After all, you can't see what you're doing, you just have to take a stab at it and then go see the result. My little stick guy never turned out like I wanted it. Eventually I realized that there were cooler things to try, and moved on. ;)

Recently I read an article about light painting. In the article, the guy did not use the techniques that I was used to-- creating light trails. Instead, he had his friends do something-- like swing on a swing-- and then set off a few flashes, freezing them in that position. The multiple flashes equaled multiple positions. Let me show you my interpretation...

This was a 20 second exposure. At certain points I would stand still and flash the light over me, creating a pretty solid image of myself. The beauty of this is that I could then move to a different spot, do the same thing, or continue with the random streaks of light.

:)

Even though it was pretty dark outside, around 8:30-9:00 it was still crazy hot and humid and the bugs were attacking me like crazyyy. Buttt it was still worth it.

Another technique that I tried out last night was writing.

It's not as easy as you would think. Since you're facing the camera with your light source, you have to write backwards for it to turn out.

I promise that soon I'll post some more camping photos...unless my new camera surprises me with something amazing as it has been doing. ;)