Challenge 74: Sweeping up light!

sirsloop · September 21, 2006

One out of Andy's book... just playin around tonight over a few beers :thumb

douglas · September 22, 2006

Very cool effect! The shadow on the left of broom head is a bit distracting, but over all very cool!

sirsloop · September 22, 2006

douglas wrote:

Very cool effect! The shadow on the left of broom head is a bit distracting, but over all very cool!

thats actually the broom... the left hand side is a dark blue handle...

ESiggins · September 22, 2006

Mind if I ask how this is done (promise I won't copy)?

Fred

douglas · September 22, 2006

ah ok, that makes more sense, i couldnt figure out why it was such a strange shadow.

sirsloop · September 22, 2006

ESiggins wrote:

Mind if I ask how this is done (promise I won't copy)?

Fred

Its basically a 5-15 second exposure in a completely dark room with a flash light. I used aluminum foil to disperse the light into the shape I wanted as seen below. I turned the lights on and focued on the broom, then turned the lens to MF and shot in manual mode from then on. This is a mixture of three different photographs. The first I just exposed the broom and attempted to blow out to very bottom center. The next two shots were sweeping motions done with the flash light laying flat on the floor. Just run it across the floor out of the frame. This takes some playing around to get. The two shots I used were actually the second and third attempt out of like 80. From there it was into TIFF format and into Photoshop CS2. I cut out the broom and jacked up the contrast and saturation. I edited the two brush photos to black out any exposed things in the shot like my stove that picked up some stray light. The first swoop was changed to blue and made very bright. Then I did the same to the second and make an opaque layer over the blue. It resulted in that kind of foggy texture. There was a lot of playing with a soft eraser to get things blended. I wanted to watch some TV so I ran it through neat image and gave up on it for the night. I'll probably clean it up a little this weekend and order a 20x24" print for my living room. It'll go nicely with my waterdrop photograph!
http://www.dslreports.com/showpic/dimaging?lid=104187&1=1

Lastly... I don't want to take all the credit for this idea. Andy turned me on to painting light, and this is my version of it. As soon a saw his photo I immedatly thought about making mine look more fluid, and multicolored kinda like norther lights. I think its getting close... to be continued...

http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1076987