Painting with Light
Over ten years ago I first came across the technique of painting with light when one of my web design clients, Scott Lewis, used it for some of the photos featured on his web site. Light painting is done using flashlights or other portable light sources to illuminate the subject and/or background of a photo. Typically it is done with a long exposure so that you have time to render the scene.
The light can either be used to illuminate the foreground subject, or it can be used to create the background by pointing the light towards the camera. Using colored gels on the lights provides you with a full palette of saturated colors to work with.
Over the last year I’ve been working with Katy in the studio, teaching her about photographic lighting. Last night we decided to play with light painting. I set up my Nikon D80 so it was tethered to my MacBook and using the free Sofortbild software we were able to instantly review each photo. The great fun of light painting is that you don’t know what you’re going to get. A digital camera makes light painting a lot more fun and certainly less expensive as there are a lot of throwaways. I can’t imagine trying the technique using film.
The anticipation of seeing each new creation show up on the screen was the best part of the process. Here are 5 of my favorites.
