DIYPhotography.net

When I was a kid I used to practice Ninja moves I saw in the movies. Needless to say that it did not make me a ninja (or made my sister happy). However, learning a technique by seeing how it's done by a pro and understanding how it works can work very well for light painting.

Usually we see a finished light painting photograph and stand amazed at the creative use of different lights. If only we could see how the photograph was created so we can understand the underlying mechanisms. Photographer and light artists Vincent Bruno takes a 15 seconds time lapse BTS of every light painting that he does so you can learn and light paint like a true ninja. Here are a few samples. Click to continue ›

Photographer Colin Mika was hired to shoot a sequence of time lapses for McCarthy Tétrault LLP. Instead of going the usual route of shooting different locations, he used a snow globe to encapsulate the timelapse while using the narrow depth of field to "play" shaped bokeh around the snow globe.

In this post, Colin is breaking down the process of making the movie. (Which you can see right after the jump) Click to continue ›

Sean Goebel shot Epochs, a spectacular time lapse piece over 11 months and 4 states. Interestingly enough, a lot of the tracking gear he used was home made and lots of the "pro" gear borrowed. Just goes to show that talent and dedication trumps budget anytime. Sean was king enough to share the complete super-detailed making of Epochs, including gear lists, locations, challanges and a lost-in-a-desert with a dying flash light story. So sit back, go to full screen crank up the volume and enjoy. Click to continue ›

Noctornal is a beautiful time lapse by Colin Legg. With scenes captured over two years it features marvelous locations from the Southern Night, Western Australia and Chile.

Aside from being overall breathtakingly beautiful, Noctornal has a few interesting moments that Collin is highlighting in particular.

Click to continue ›

a while back we shared a light painting image created using a video that un-slices a human body. While light painting a cadaver is fun, it can get a bit depressing if this is the only thing you light paint.

Enter CSOfLP - it is a Vimeo group full of animations ready for Cross Section Light Painting, and as such it is full of 3D object renderings that you can use to create 3D objects when you light paint, or as Hugo Baptista dubs it 3DCSLP. Click to continue ›

I thought I've seen it all with pinholes. From getting them in walnuts to making a run on three 35mm films. David O'Sullivan proved me wrong with his submission to our How I Took It. David created a 50MP pinhole camera by cleverly using a body cap. Definitely not how I've seen body cap/pinhole combos done before.

Like many people with a DSLR I have experimented on and off with the ubiquitous pinhole lens made out of a body cap and some aluminium cans. I have always been disappointed with the results as they end up just being blurry photographs and don’t have any of the magic a ‘real’ pinhole does. Real pinhole photographs are often very wide angle and have characteristic vignetting around the edges. This imparts a dreamy or other-worldly feeling to the image.

I set out to improve on the idea and build my own.

Click to continue ›

One of the nice and less common effect we see in light painting is smoke effect. Despite of its relative rareness it is requite easy to make as light painter Wen-Jié Yang demonstrates in the video below.

Click to continue ›

Our How I Took It Contest got an impressive number of steel wool light painting tutorials. I wanted to share this one from Mike Mikkelson as it introduces two new elements that we've never had on the blog before: a super smart steel wool cage (rather than the whisker that we usually use) and the creation of a vortex. Enjoy.

I get a lot of comments on my Steel Wool Vortex image, and I have had many people ask me how I took it. Most people are surprised when I let them know that it is steel wool on the end of a cable, lit on fire, and then spun around very fast to create the sparks. Although the art of steel wool photography is not new or unique, I have constructed a re-usable rig that has helped me make some great fire wool images. This thread will explain how I created a custom cage for steel wool photography, and how I made the Fire Wool Vortex image.

Andrew Hall creates light painting orbs like no other I have seen before. And I have seen all kinds of orbs. It almost seems as if they are directed in some way. In fact his orbs are so unique that his work is decorating book covers and featured in magazines.

I asked Andrew a to tell DIYP readers a little bit about the orbs. The story is quite interesting but the process remains a trade secret for you hackers to explore in the upcoming nights ... Click to continue ›

Would it be weird if we lived in a world without people? Ross Ching is exploring this questions exactly in a series of time-lapses called The Empty America.

The series is made out of time lapse movies taken in major cities in the us, with people magically removed from them.

So far movies have been taken in San Francisco, Seattle, New York City and Washington D.C. Click to continue ›