Simple Light Painting Simple Light Painting In this lesson, we’re going to take a look at one of my favorite types of photog- raphy: Light painting. When you create a light painted image, you capture a long exposure when it’s dark out. During the exposure, you use a portable light source (like a flashlight) and move through the scene while “painting light” onto the sub- ject. Because it’s completely dark out, you won’t show up in the scene at all be- cause you’ll never point the flashlight at yourself. It’s only the areas where you point the flashlight that will show up in the finished image. With this technique, it’s ok if your subject is not placed in an exciting environment. If you don’t light the background, it simply won’t appear and your subject will have a black background. Know that we’re going to have a few lessons on light painting. With this lesson, we’re just going to get started and cover the basic techniques. To begin, don’t try to make perfect-looking images. Instead, use this lesson as an opportunity to be creative, have fun and experiment. In a future lesson, we’re going to learn how to create more complex light paintings that involve multiple exposures. Before we start light painting, let’s look at a few examples. Some of these include some special techniques that will be briefly described in the captions. The images above are extremely refined light paintings. They consist of many exposures that were combined together with layer masks in Photoshop. These images give you an idea of what is ultimately possible with the light painting technique. Simple Light Painting © Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 2 LEFT: This is a simple light painting created using a regular flashlight and a single exposure. The flashlight was fairly close to the subject and this created a more painterly style of light. RIGHT: The subject was quickly painted with a flashlight and then he created those light streaks by moving a flashlight around, aiming the light directly into the camera. Any time you point the flashlight directly into the camera, you will get this type of “light graffiti.” This is a light painting I created of myself. I positioned one arm, lit it, then moved the arm and lit it again. I repeated this process to make it look like I had several arms. Again, the streaks that you see are from directing the light source toward the camera. Simple Light Painting © Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 3 In these images, creative effects were created by using a colored LED light source and paint- ing a shape while pointing the light into the camera. The subjects were lit with a regular flash light, aiming the light source at the subjects. These images demonstrate that the environment is not always important. You can see on the left that the surroundings were rather boring. I did not light those surroundings, however, so they did not show up in the final result. The streaks of light you see in the final image were creating using sparklers. Simple Light Painting © Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 4 FAR LEFT: The image was created using colored gels. I lit one side of the chair with a red gel covering the flashlight and I lit the other side with a green gel covering the flashlight. I then used a small blue light, aimed at the camera, to create the figure. DIRECTLY LEFT: I did not light the sub- ject at all. Instead, I swung a glow stick on a string behind her. LEFT: This is the kind of result you can expect when creating your first or second light painting. RIGHT: This is a very advanced light painting that was created by making hundreds of individual exposures, each designed to light a very specific area of the scene. Simple Light Painting © Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 5 A Note About Autofocus This is the most common mistake that photographers make when trying to light paint for the first time. Chances are, you’re used to using the camera set to aut- ofocus and autofocus relies on the brightness of the scene. When the shutter opens, the camera uses light to determine where to focus. But when light paint- ing, there will be no light. The autofocus will try to find something to focus on but it will eventually fail. You’ll continue with the exposure and create your light painting only to find out later that the entire image is blurry. To prevent blurry images, you’ll need to create light paintings in manual focus. Before turning the light off, focus the camera on your subject and then switch to manual focus. If you are working outside at night, you may need to shine a flash- light onto the subject in order to set the focus before switching to manual. The Position of the Light Source When light painting, you’re going to be in a dark environment and when you open the camera’s shutter, you’re going to use a flashlight to light the scene. The dis- tance between your flashlight and the subject is going to change the look of the effect. If you point the flashlight at a wall or other flat surface, it’s likely going to create some kind of round shape. If the flashlight is very close to the wall, it’s go- ing to create a very defined beam with harder edges. As you move the flashlight farther from the wall, the circle will get bigger and the edges will soften more and more. If you double the distance between yourself and the surface you’re trying to light, you will only get one fourth the amount of light hitting any given area of the wall. That has to do with the light spreading out to take up four times the amount of space on the wall. What dose this mean? If your flashlight is a longer distance from the subject you’re painting, you are going to need to spend more time, let- ting the light build up to get the proper brightness. Simple Light Painting © Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 6 LEFT: The light source was positioned close to the person’s hand. This created a stroke that was brighter and had more defined edges. RIGHT: The light source was positioned farther from the person’s hand. This created a stroke that was less bright and had less defined edges. Unlike normal photography, where your exposure is fast (1/250 second, for exam- ple), a light-painted exposure may take 10 seconds, 30 seconds or even longer. Since that’s the case, you don’t need to keep your light source in one fixed posi- tion. Through a long exposure, you will move the light source around the scene. To start, you will need to experiment a bit so that you can get a feel for what it’s like when the light source is close to the subject versus farther away. When the light source is close, the result will look more painterly and you will need to light the area for a shorter period of time. LEFT: This is the subject with the lights turned on, before starting to light paint. CENTER: The subject was lit with the flashlight positioned far from the subject. RIGHT: Here, the flashlight was close to the subject and this created a more painterly effect. Simple Light Painting © Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 7 Lightpainting How-To (24:53) When to light paint You can start light painting about a half hour after sunset. This is when there will be still a bit of blue in the sky but it will be dark enough that the light doesn’t effect the image. Alternatively, if you have a room without any windows, you can light paint any time of day! What to light paint Start with an object that’s not super tiny. Small objects are more difficult and you’d need a flashlight small enough to limit where the light falls. In the video example, I’m going to light paint a chair. Choose a flashlight It doesn’t need to be fancy, but it’s best to use a more modern flashlight that doesn’t put out overly yellow light. Set up the camera It’s best to place the camera on a tripod to ensure that it doesn’t move during the exposure. Set the camera to manual mode and attach a cable release if you have one. If using a cable release, set the shutter speed to bulb mode. This setting is usually one level beyond the 30-second setting as you turn the shutter speed dial. The cable release will allow you to open and close the shutter as needed. Most cable releases allow you to slide the release button to a locked position so that the shutter can remain open while you walk away to light paint. When you’re done, you can unlock the button to end the exposure. If you don’t have a cable release, set the shutter speed to 30 seconds, as this should be long enough for you to complete a simple light painting. Set the ap- erture in the same way that you would for a normal photograph, using an F stop that ensures the entire subject will be in focus. Set the ISO to the camera’s default setting, which is usually ISO 100, or ISO 200 for some Nikons.