Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
A few months ago, I gave a masterclass about how to create colorful portraits. One of the setups was a unique portrait with a model “trapped” inside a light-painted circle. I wanted to share how I created that portrait using a drill, a found garden hose, and a couple of KYU-6 LED lights.
You may hear me saying “don’t try this at home” a couple of times. If you do decide to defy me, please use soft materials like a garden hose and soft KYU-6 lights. (vs., say, a broomstick).
When we hear the term “ring light” in photography, one thing immediately springs to mind and it offers a very distinctive look. But there is also another type, which isn’t meant to wrap around your lens to create that “shadowless” (which isn’t really) beam of fill light coming directly from your camera, and that’s what Pye Jirsa shows us how to make in this video.
It’s an interesting idea, basically wrapping a string of lights around a ring to create a unique look. And sure, while you could potentially try to use it like a traditional ring light, it won’t do much good, as those little LEDs aren’t going to light a subject very well from any kind of distance. But for light painting? Well, that’s where it really shines.
Light painting has increased massively in popularity over the last few years. It’s not really surprising. Gone are the days of film where you had no idea whether you’d got the shot or not until hours or days later. The instant feedback of digital and zero extra cost of shooting a thousand photos rather than one has made its popularity pretty inevitable as more people have acquired DSLRs and mirrorless cameras.
But if you’ve never done it before, or you’ve had a go but didn’t get results even close to what you hoped for, it can be difficult to figure out exactly what you did wrong and what information you’re missing. Well, this video, the first in a series, from photographer Susan Magnano will help explain it to you. In it, she goes over the terms, techniques and tools you need to get started.
There are so many ways to explore light painting, the possibilities are endless. One way to light paint a waterfall is the traditional method of using some sort of flashlight and shining the light up and down the waterfall while you use a long shutter speed. That can certainly produce beautiful and ethereal results. But Peter Juhlin from Gothenberg, Sweden decided to try a completely different method and ended up with this spectacular colourful result. Read on to discover how he did it!
Painting the skies with drones has become a popular activity lately, and we’ve seen some very impressive stuff produced. But this marketing campaign for Porsche, shot by visual artist and commercial fine art photographer Baber Afzal makes for some of the cleanest and most effective drone light painting images I’ve seen so far.
Created in collaboration with Porsche Middle East & Africa, the images were created for the campaign “Reflections of Passion”. The images also snapped up two silver awards in the advertising & conceptual category in the well-respected One Eyeland Awards 2021.
We featured Andrew McCarthy and his stunning photos on DIYP before. And the moment I discovered his work, I became a fan. Andrew’s photos enrich make my Instagram feed, and this one just stopped me in my tracks. Andrew combined astrophotography and light painting and created a unique artwork I immediately wanted to know more about. He kindly shared the image with DIYP, along with some information on how he created it.
When in lockdown, you gotta work with what you’ve got. And even if you’re not in lockdown, it’s always fun to make photography props and gadgets from stuff you have lying around the house. Jason D. Page teamed up with Jason Rinehart to create a light painting tool from something I’m sure we all have at home: a plastic bottle and some tape.
I saw a post from a fellow light painter that grabbed my attention. It implanted itself into my brain and I haven’t been able to let go of it. He pondered “We know that by looking at painters brush strokes how they were feeling at a certain time. In light painting, we “paint” with light. I would be curious to see if emotion could be shown in the brush strokes of light painting too.”
My response was that I don’t think you could necessarily capture individual strokes of light and not that much detail from the light itself. But from someone with experience with Light Painting, you can most definitely factor in different variations of speed used and flow for sure, from one’s understanding about light painting just from looking at an image.
As long as you have your camera and some lights, you can never be bored. There are countless images you can create with light painting, and the only limit is your imagination. But if you need some inspiration to get you started, Jason D. Page has an awesome tutorial for you. In this video, he creates a photo of a “time traveler.” All he uses are a few simple props and some lights, and it’s all done in-camera.
RECENTLY: I’m in the United States, and we’re not allowed to enter most other countries because we did a horrible job with a global virus.
TWO OR THREE YEARS AGO: “Hey Frodo, I think we should collaborate on a project where you’re in Spain and I’m in the USA and we make an art piece together”
TONIGHT: Hmmmm, I can do the thing with Frodo and I’ll be able to team up with a light painter from another country. Let’s finally do it!!
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