Light Painting - Guitar (Week Three)
Saturday, January 23, 2010
So, in the last minute rush to do this weeks post, I was stuck shooting late at night with nothing but an energy saver bedroom light and a flashgun. While this worked, it really was rather boring, until I decided to have a shot at light painting.
So, what is light painting? Basically, you set the camera for a long exposure, the you take a torch and point it at what you want lit up. Sure, there may be a few complexities in there, but that is basically how it works - torch, camera, dark room. Very easy, and a lot of fun!
This was both easier than I thought, and harder than I thought at the same time. How can this be possible, you ask? Quite simply, it was easier than I thought for the lit up areas to show on the photo, yet harder to target the light than I thought. Having said that, the torch I was using had a rather large spread of light. This problem may have been solved using either a small Maglight or LED light, but I didn't have those handy...
So, how did I go? In short, it came out rather well. I probably would have preferred the guitar to be the other way round in hindsight, so that the model name wasn't upside down. And maybe work from a different angle so that there isn't as much shadow behind the control knobs.
Oh, and probably should have made an effort at some point to dust the thing, but that's just a side note that's not just photography related.
Anyway, feel free to either to be as critical or complimentary as you like. Just try to keep it clean!
Click for larger image
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7 comments:
That is such an incredible idea! I can't believe I'd never heard of this before! The image looks excellent, although truthfully I just thought you'd pointed a lamp at a cardboard cut-out of a guitar.
Are there experimentations you could try which create impossible images light-wise? You know, something that couldn't have been created without light painting?
I'm intrigued to see what sort of things you could do with this.
Yeah, there's a lot. For example, [URL=http://www.flickr.com/photos/telfa/3291682131/in/set-72157608126248375/]this.[/URL] Basically, it's sign writing in the dark with a torch.
[URL=http://images.google.com.au/images?q=light+painting&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=17VbS7OHLoKqtgOmruCdAw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQsAQwAA]Some Google images here.[/URL]
You can trace objects like I did here, or create random shapes. It gets even better if you have some funky fluro coloured torches for different lighting effects.
To be honest, with this one it would have been far easier to just take the photo and photoshop in the black area, but that isn't as interesting ;).
You can kind of see the areas where I haven't had the light as much, so that's something to work on.
Another thing I want to try now that I've got a proper flash is making somebody appear in the same picture several times. But that's for another day...
Well, looks like url tags don't work in commenting...
Very interesting technique. I wouldn't mind seeing some of the 'failed' versions of these photos uploaded as well, if you have them.
This is how you do a link in comments:
< a href="www.INSERT.com">text here.< /a >
Just remove the space at the start and the two spaces at the end.
Huh, they either changed the html specs or I'm a noob...
Anyway, I'll post up some failed stuff when I get some better internets, but basically there are some blotchy dark areas, and brightly lit areas. Oh, and when I forgot to change the white balance and everything was orange.
I'll chuck it on flickr or something and link here.
Alright, some of the lesser photos are now here.
Okay, I'm really glad you posted the fail photos, because now I appreciate the final version so much more.
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