This surreal light painting photo was taken at a single exposure
Dec 2, 2019
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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Sometimes, aimless scrolling through your Facebook feed has its purpose. While I was doing it a few days ago, an amazing light photo stole all my attention and made my jaw drop. After admiring it for a while, I decided to get in touch with Sergey Savenko, the young photographer who took it. So, I am sharing this surreal photo with you, as well as some details Sergey kindly shared about it.
My first surprise was that this image is a single shot, not a composite. Everything was done on location, at a single 4-second exposure. Sergey took the photo near a thermal power plant out of Rostov-on-Don, Russia. And in my opinion, he picked a really interesting location.
I asked Sergey about the gear he used. He shot the photo with a Sony a6300 paired with a 16-50 kit lens. Of course, his camera was on a tripod because of the 4s exposure. Interestingly enough, there was no extra light: the entire scene was illuminated only by the light painting. And when it comes to the light painting flashlight, he uses a simple, no-name flashlight from China. I often say that gear doesn’t matter, and photos like this are proof of that. In other words, I believe that you can take stunning photos even with a cheap camera, a kit lens, and a no-name light.
Finally, I wanted to know about what Sergey finds the most challenging about creating photos like this. It’s not the shooting process itself, but everything that comes before it. For Sergey, the most challenging part is the preparation, finding references, creating a storyboard, and finding an interesting place to shoot. But once that is done – the magic happens.
If you like this photo, make sure to follow Sergey’s work on Instagram, Behance, and his YouTube channel.
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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12 responses to “This surreal light painting photo was taken at a single exposure”
it’s pretty impressive but when you have to completely change half the photo then yeah any gear will do.
Let me guess, you’re in the anti Photoshop brigade and everything you do is straight out of camera and you don’t really understand that even a jpeg has a picture profile and some minor adjustments made to it.
Art is art not always defined by the portfolio, great work
He didn’t *have* to do anything, but let’s not act like photo editing is something rarely used, even for people with expensive gear. The shot looked cool as is, and the edit just brought out the vision. There’s only so much you can control when shooting in the field, no matter what camera you have.
It’s called creating an artistic image via digital photography. The camera and graphics software are both equal tools in the process, this isn’t photo journalism.
It’s confusing to me why people are still snobby about editing in post. A good artist will use every tool at his or her disposal to create the vision in their head.
This person did a fantastic job of making his vision happen in 1 shot with very average gear. Its very resourceful and a lesson for most paranoid gear addicts.
It’s one thing to complain about over-editing, which is completely subjective and morally okay unless as long as the artist is transparent about it (which is the case here).
But then it’s also another thing to be gatekeeping about the gear used. Cameras are tools, and the final product is what actually matters. A response like “then yeah any gear will do.” is just snobbery and belittling any work and effort the artist has done.
So wait, in your world “the internet” is negative because they challenge your negativity and trolling
Amazingness! I use my note 8 and note 10+ and able to set a 10 second long exposure. I use LEDs from the 99 cent store. Im happy he shared his techniques unlike the others. THANK YOU AND HOPE TOO SEE MUCH MORE FROM YOU!!!
Very impressive, however, its only the light painting that gets attention in the pic, the subject is somewhat lost. Impressive but not great!
That’s right!
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I prefer unedited photos and no longer have editing software. The picture above is jus pretty with little or no meaning.
Nice! Try covering the back half the light painting tube with black tape, and you won’t end up in the shot. ??