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Everything You Wanted To Know About Light Painting

Sep 21, 2011 by Udi Tirosh Add Comment

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If you love photography and you love painting, imagine how much you would love light painting.

It is called painting with light because this is what you are actually doing while taking the shot – painting with light. Aside from being darn beautiful form of photography, it is also a pretty darn cool to spend an evening or a night.

Use Light Stencils To Create Amazing Light Paintings

The requirements are very minimal you would need a camera that you can set on long exposure, a tripod and some light, light a flash light, matches or one of the oh-so-cool gadgets I’ll share below.

If you want to get the general idea, a great place to do it is here, and if you want the jump start treatment, you can get it here.

The last thing you will need is tools, we will cover tool in a little while, but if you want to get a feel for the variety of things you can do check out this post.

No Really, What Are You Talking About?

But of course I would not have made such a statement without some pictures to prove it. So here come some examples. The images and videos below are a quick taste of the great possibilities that open up once you embrace light painting. Click each of the images to learn more about it.

American Chevy Light Painted As Ghost Car

Phill's Pet

Techniques

Over the years DIYP has amassed a wide range of simple techniques that you can use to create spectacular light painting images. Here are some of our most beloved tutorials. (click on any of them to learn more).

Give People An Aura Using Light Painting
Give People An Aura Using Light Painting

Set People On Magical Fire
People On Magical Fire

Create Geometric Light Painting Spirographs
Create Geometric Light Painting Spirographs

Create Amazing Light Spirographs With The Spirograph Wheel
Create Amazing Light Spirographs With The Spirograph Wheel

Make Light Painting Circles With Light
Make Light Painting Circles With Light

Making Patterned Light Painting Images
Making Patterned Light Painting Images

Creating The Orb
Creating The Orb

Tools

But! But, if you want to create something really spectacular, there are some tools to the trade of light painting. As with the images before, click an image to see how to build the tool that made it.

Use A Cheapo Inflatable Wheel To Create Wonderful Camera Tossing Pictures
Use A Cheapo Inflatable Wheel To Create Wonderful Camera Tossing Pictures

Use Light Stencils To Create Amazing Light Paintings
Use Light Stencils To Create Amazing Light Paintings

Light Stencils Video Tutorial

Create Amazing Sparkles Car Light Paintings
Create Amazing Sparkles Car Light Paintings

Create Great Light Painting Imagery Using Fireworks
Create Great Light Painting Imagery Using Fireworks

Create Wonderful Light Painting Art Using A Cold Cathode
Create Wonderful Light Painting Art Using A Cold Cathode

Lightpainting Lightsabers
Lightpainting Lightsabers

Steel Wool Light Painting

Sweet Tricks

If this dose of light painting did not satisfy you, here are three more geeky light painting tricks

Video Light Painting

A Digital Light Wand That Creates Light Painting In Thin Air
The Digital Light Wand Creates Light Painting In Thin Air

Extruding Light Painting Out Of iPads

Sharing Your Own Work

If you got a kick out of light painting, help us spread the word. Mail this page to a friend, like it on Facebook, make a tweet or tumble us. (Links above)

As with any DIYP project, we would love to see your work on our Flickr Group. Make sure to mention the setup and link to one of the tutorials above or to this link in the captions. Or just share your work in the comments.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

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Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: light painting

Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.net

About Udi Tirosh

Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

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Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.netUdi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

Alex Baker: from diyphotography.netAlex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

David Williams: from diyphotography.netDave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred: from diyphotography.netJohn Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

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