#56 1st attempt - painting

oldtown_dreamer

hi all,

here it is... camping, as evidenced by the RVs in the background. The moon was almost full, definitely the biggest source of light excluding the headlamp i used to write... i didn't notice me in the shot until the next day. not entirely sure how i feel about the unintentional portrait.




as always, thanks in advance for looking and the feedback.

Jenn

How did you do that?

red_zone

Jenn - camera setting: Manual
you can set the time the camera lens stays open - Diana set hers to 12 seconds. when it's that dark and you're moving quickly, you don't show up at all. If you stay still long enough or shine the light on yourself, you show up. (When I was taking pictures of a fire I held the camera still for 3 of 4 seconds and moved it around the last. If I'd kept it moving the whole time you wouldn't get to see the people - not enough light had hit them to expose them to the sensor).

Diana -
interesting concept - I didn't notice your 'ghost' portrait the first time I looked at the picture, but I see it now... There's a lot of stuff above the 'e' that might not have been intentional... and I really like the halo effect of the light. I'd try cropping closer to the word? It'd lose some of the halo, but might lose some of the distractions around the edges e.g. your portrait and the campers.

Jenn

red_zone wrote: »

Jenn - camera setting: Manual
you can set the time the camera lens stays open - Diana set hers to 12 seconds. when it's that dark and you're moving quickly, you don't show up at all. If you stay still long enough or shine the light on yourself, you show up. (When I was taking pictures of a fire I held the camera still for 3 of 4 seconds and moved it around the last. If I'd kept it moving the whole time you wouldn't get to see the people - not enough light had hit them to expose them to the sensor).

so do you draw the words backwards standing in front of the camera?

oldtown_dreamer

Jenn wrote: »

so do you draw the words backwards standing in front of the camera?

Jenn,
you got it. the only other thing was that i shut off the headlamp after each letter. so the sequence was: turn it on, draw a backwards 'r' turn it off. turn it on and do the 'e', turn it off. turn it on and draw the 'd'.

i think the stuff behind the e was done before i started with the 'r'.

red_zone,

thanks for the explanation, i couldn't have done it better myself. the only thing i'll add is that i didn't set the timer (not sure my camera can do anything other than 15 and 30 seconds, and 1 and 2 minutes), instead i used a remote shutter and set the camera to the 'bulb' setting. i was holding the shutter release button down the 12 seconds it took to write the letters, once i was done, i released it.

i'll try cropping, and see what happens. i'm also going to try to do some panning with my cat... if he cooperates...

red_zone

sorry to assume things - if I'd ever used a remote shutter release maybe I wouldn't have discounted it!

good luck with the cat - I've never known one who would move in a predictable enough manner to follow smoothly with a lens... it's either streaking or pouncing or stopping to look behind-what's-that-oh-it's-my-tail, sometimes all in the same move.

oldtown_dreamer

red_zone wrote: »

sorry to assume things - if I'd ever used a remote shutter release maybe I wouldn't have discounted it!

good luck with the cat - I've never known one who would move in a predictable enough manner to follow smoothly with a lens... it's either streaking or pouncing or stopping to look behind-what's-that-oh-it's-my-tail, sometimes all in the same move.

no worries about the remote shutter thingie. i've only used mine a few times. totally cool. the only downside it's that it's pretty small (about 3/4" x 1 1/2" x 1/4") and can be hard to keep track of. i've been totally convinced i've lost it only to find it inside a shoe...

as far as the cat... clearly you've met my stormy boy

amiable

Jenn wrote: »

so do you draw the words backwards standing in front of the camera?

Another option to writing the words backwards is to invert the image (or flip horizontally) using whatever image editing software you use. I find my handwriting is much better forwards than backwards.