Here’s a cool trick that my friend Amr Tahtawi showed me a while ago and that I keep using for my light-painting pictures.

As usual, I do a series of quick light-painting pictures with Kim Henry at blue hour (to get the nice background). Most of them are lit in one second. These are created using tubeguards.

Make sure your composition is perfect before starting shooting and never move your tripod or camera angle. It’s very important to keep the same position the whole time to keep your pictures aligned. Settings on the camera for light-painting are usually f5.6, iso800, bulb mode. I shoot with two full frame cameras and lenses at 14mm and 35mm.

When you’re done with light-painting, wait a little bit until the horizon becomes totally dark and then you’re ready to create the star trail shot. Change your settings on your camera (normally f11, iso200), re-focus to infinity, and take an exposure of about 15 minutes using the bulb mode (you’ll need aremote trigger to avoid camera shaking)

To do the final edit, open the two pictures on your favorite editing software on two different layers (star trails on top). Use blending mode “lighten” on the top layer, and mask out unwanted details on the model and background (you’ll usually see dead pixels and weird things here and there).

It would be technically possible to get everything in one shot using the lens capping technique. That would mean doing one light-painting picture, put the lens cap on, wait until it’s dark enough, then put lens cap off and do the star trail shot. But I’m not willing to risk wasting a whole night when I have to drive three hours to go to the location.

As the temperature can fall rapidly at night in the desert, you’d want to make sure your body is warm before dark time. What we usually do is a series of yoga poses. That also helps for Kim to keep still in the poses, and for me to have a better flow in my light-painting shapes. Also, when we do that kind of night shooting when traveling, we come back too late at the hotel and all the restaurants are closed, especially when we’re in small villages. So we always make sure to buy wine and cheese before leaving the room and that’s our biggest motivation on our way back after shooting. Yoga -> light-painting -> star trails -> wine/cheese is the best routine ever. Have fun! :)

 

About the Author

Eric Pare is a canadian visual artist who has been performing light-painting all around the world since 2013.  You can find out more about him on his website, or follow his work on 500px, Facebook and Instagram.