painting with light

I was thinking about painting with light today (and how fun and easy it is) and I came across two great photographers/collectives that have mastered this technique. The first I want to show you is Burn Blue Photography aka Toby Keller. I thought this series was amazing, and I loved how the light seems so natural like it is part of the landscape. And of course any post about painting with light has to mention LICHTFAKTOR. They specialize in this sort of thing, so obviously their photos are amazing, you have to go see their website for more.

All you need to do to pull this sort of thing off yourself is have a camera that can do long exposures, a tripod, and a flashlight (or anything that generates light).

1. set your camera on your tripod (or really, any sort of stable surface where it won’t move)
2. set the shutter speed to the longest speed you have (usually bulb, but basically the setting that keeps the shutter open until you press the button again)
3. make sure you’re in a dark room or if you’re outside there isn’t a lot of ambient light that’s going to overexpose and ruin your photo.
4. jump into the photo! i know it seems weird, but because it’s so dark and if you keep moving, the camera will not expose you (or usually not all of you).
5. wave your flashlight/light source around and draw pictures. Simple!

You’ll have to experiment with settings and exposures, but it’s pretty easy to figure out, especially with a digital camera so you can see right away what works best. It’ll vary according to how much ambient light is already present, but you can get some pretty awesome results with minimal effort!

Another cool way to do it is use your handheld flash and expose only parts of the subject. You can also use any sort of flashlight to expose your subject matter, instead of pointing it at the camera, use it to illuminate what you’re taking a picture of, it makes a really cool soft and flowing looking exposure!