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Learning to
Paint with Light
I created my first light painting back
when I was in high school and shot film.
I found the process and results to be one of
the most enjoyable experiences. I have now been
painting with light for almost 30 years and even now
the idea of light painting really excites me.
I think your first attempt at painting with light will be both fun and frustrating.
The fun part comes from how you can quickly transform an otherwise boring
subject into something exciting, while the frustration comes from a process that
might feel foreign and needs more experimentation than you might be used
to. You’ll get less and less frustrated as you become more experiences and you
should continue to have fun as you progress in your ability to paint with light.
It is my hope that you’ll still enjoy the process of painting with light many years
from now.
Here’s a sample of some of the light paintings I’ve created over the years.
THE CONCEPT
It starts with total darkness
Most light paintings start with nothing... no ambient light,
that is. That means a 30-second exposure would produce
a black frame with no discernible detail, which is not unlike
what you’d get if you left the lens cap in place. Circle of light. Flash-
light is aimed at one
Your camera captures only what you light spot & doesn’t move.
Watching someone paint with light looks similar to seeing a
search light scanning a scene; you only see what is actively
being lit by a flashlight at any moment in time. But to the
camera, that light will act more like paint coming out of a
can of spray paint. That’s because the camera’s shutter will
be open during the entire process and will therefore record
the full path of the light as it is moved. If you pass the light
Trail of light. Flash-
over an area more than once, it will cause twice as much light is moved as if
light to built up in that area. Pause and linger in one spot it were scanning a
and the light will also build up to produce a brighter result. surface.
Get in close
Move in close to your subject. The small- top-sized subjects, I usually hold the
er the subject, the closer you’ll need to flashlight between six inches and two
be to get a painterly look. For table- feet away from the subject.
As you move the flashlight farther the same amount of paint is spread
away from the subject (two feet away, over a much wider area, causing each
for instance), you’ll notice three things area to get a thinner coat of paint than
changing: if you were to get close and concen-
1) It will be more difficult to see exactly trate the paint onto a smaller area.
where you painted because the flash- 3) Moving the flashlight away from
light will cover such a wide area. It will the subject will produce a much soft-
be difficult to isolate objects without er light quality where the light slowly
getting overspray on the surroundings. fades out on the edge instead of stop-
2) As you move farther away, the ping abruptly.
amount of light falling on the subject
will decrease. If you double the dis- I’ve found that multi-bulb flashlights
tance from flashlight to subject, that used at close proximity to the sub-
will cause only 1/4 of the light to fall on ject will produce a hybrid look where
the subject. Tripling the distance will the edge of the light has a soft fall
deliver 1/9th the light and quadrupling off (similar to a single bulb light used
it will deliver only 1/16th the light. To a few feet away), but can be used to
compensate for this, you’ll most like- more selectively light the subject by
ly have to increase your camera’s ISO being at a close range. I typically use a
setting to make it more sensitive to flashlight that features at least a dozen
light and/or paint slower to allow the bulbs when going for this look.
light to build up. Think back to a can of
spray paint. As you move farther away,
I find that the number of ways to light paint is virtually unlimited. One way to
get more ideas is to look at what others are doing. Consider searching for “light
painting” on the following web sites and then try to guess how each result might
have been produced:
www.google.com (click on the Images choice near the top after searching)
www.flickr.com www.pinterest.com
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