First Attempt at Painting with Light

lisasolonynko

I found a cool old boat on the beach and decided to have a go at painting with light.

How did I do? CC is greatly appreciated.

Lisa

adbsgicom

More of a question than feedback. How do you define painting w/ light? This looks to be a nicely lit boat against a black background. How did you light this, as opposed to OCF? FWIW, I like the end result.

Thanks.

rwells

Hey Lisa,

I really like the light on the boat, but it's just floating in space


It would be nice to see some ground/water also.

What did you light it with? Color balance?

lisasolonynko

I went to a small beach inlet and spotted the boat on the beach. I waited until it was pitch black. Luckily it was an area completely sheltered from moonlight etc.

I set up my tripod, locked the mirror, and set the camera to bulb. I was wearing all black so that I could stand right next to the boat. I used two flashlights to "paint" the boat while the shutter was open. I made sure that I kept the flashlights moving so that I wouldn't get any hotspots. I counted to 45 ..... very slowly, and then closed the shutter.

I would have liked to get more ground as well. That is something I will keep in mind for next time.

Thanks for the comments.

Lisa

adbsgicom

So is the very nice falloff in light from bow toward the stern 100% PP?

lisasolonynko

The light fall off is as it was in camera. The only post processing I did was a minor levels adjustment. No cropping was done either. I took great care with the flashlights to make sure that the light tappered off just short of the edge of the frame. I had taken about 8 shots prior to this one so that I could see how the light was processed by the sensor. Since it couldn't get any darker, my lighting conditions were fairly constant. I learned right away that the flashlight had to be moving continously, and that you could taper the light.

Lisa

Zimtok

Very nice result.

Back in my film days I used to do similar shots. I would set up my camera just like you did and then using a flash in my hand I would flash a subject, then move the subject slightly or add another subject, then "paint" it with a dim hand held light. The result would be a clear subject with a ghost subject.

Since going digital I haven't tried this technique, in fact I forgot about it, Your photo has given me a few new (old) ideas to try....

Thanks



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lisasolonynko

Zimtok: That would be awesome to see. I hope you give it a try soon.

Lisa

TrulyAlaskan

lisasolonynko wrote:

Zimtok: That would be awesome to see. I hope you give it a try soon.

Lisa

Lisa,

This kind of photography is pretty much all I do during the winter time (3-4 hours of daylight.)

using natural light (flashlights, non colored flash units etc) are the hardest because they are easily "blown out"

I mainly use colored gel's over my flash unit, hand held flash lights, and now my remote controlled flash units to light up the subject.

If you want some more info on my technique, I'd be more than happy to lend you a hand.

Here's an idea of what i do.... not sure if this is the look you're after..





Brett