light painting landmarks into a landscape

hayley fairweather

I've got much of what I need to do figured out, but am still stumped about a few things. So here's my idea guys... I want to draw london landmarks such as the London eye, the O2 arena, St. Stephens tower [Big Bens' tower] over Surrey landscapes. I've been doing a few practice shots in my room where the surrounding areas come out completely black and only the light is noticable. I've never actually tried this out before, so I'm not sure how to do this so that the background shows and the light is still vibrant.

Also, because I want to draw landmarks into the landscape, would it be easier do you think to have an assistant in the foreground drawing them, piece by piece, or for me to lean forwards [still behind the camera] and draw them myself? I'm just trying to figure out scale here really.

Another thing I was wondering was that if this didn't work, I was thinking of perhaps shooting the light drawing seperately in a studio and superimposing them in, but would this be possible for a less than capable photo-editor? I mean, I have some simple skills, but I don't know how far I can stretch myself..

Thanks for reading :] x

pathfinder

Sounds very interesting.