What is Light Painting?Light painting is a technique usually performed in a dark area where a photographer uses different lighting elements during a long exposure photograph. The duration of the exposure is normally around 5 minutes long but can also range from a few seconds to several hours. Lighting elements can be shown directly or indirectly using flashlights, mobile phones, or anything that emits light. The type of equipment required for light painting can include any camera that has the ability for longer shutter speeds. Most photographers use a Digital SLR, with a tripod and remote shutter release to give them full flexibility.
There are 3 basic light painting techniques: Light Painting is using handheld lights to selectively illuminate and colour parts of the subject or scene in a long exposure. Light painting requires a slow shutter speed, usually a second or more. Light drawing is a similar technique to light painting but instead it requires a light source to "draw" a picture by shining it directly into the camera lens, this also requires a slow shutter speed like light painting. Kinetic Light Painting is by moving the camera, also called camera painting , it is the opposite of traditional photography. In a dark area, the camera can be taken off the tripod and used like a paintbrush. An example is using the night sky as the canvas, the camera as the brush and cityscapes as the palette. Moving the camera by stroking lights, making patterns and laying down backgrounds can create abstract images. Gjon MiliGjon Mili, a technical prodigy and lighting innovator, he was trained as an engineer and he was also a self taught photographer. He used stroboscopic light to capture the motion of everything from to dancers to jugglers. His creation of photoflash photography work was just his first gift to the light painting world. Mili was also on an assignment for Life magazine in 1949 which he went to visit Picasso in the South of France in 1949. Mili showed Picasso some of his photographs of ice skaters with tiny lights affixed to their skates, jumping in the dark — and the Spanish genius’s mind began to race.
Frank GilbrethGilbreth was an early advocate of scientific management and a pioneer of motion study and is also best known as the central figure of Cheaper by the Dozen.
In 192 he used small lights and the open shutter of a camera to track the motion of manufacturing and clerical workers. Gilbreth and his wife did not create the light painting photographs as an artistic way but was studying what they called "work simplification". Frank and Lillian, collaborated on the development of micro-motion study as an engineering and management technique and introduced the application of psychology to industrial management. They saw the need to improve worker satisfaction, which would improve overall job performance and worker efficiency. Gilbreth designed systems to ease worker fatigue and increase productivity by studying each movement a worker made, and in doing so, document the best way to perform the task. |
John HeskethIn 1985 John Hesketh took his camera into his back yard and began work on his first light painting series “Homelife”. The subject of this series were objects in his everyday home life. Hesketh says this about the series John uses color filters in his work where he will separate one color from entering into the camera while he is light painting. Hesketh lives in Anaheim California and continues to explore his light painting process with his latest light painting series “Los Angeles”.
“Before I was working with this work I was interested in how black and white records of red, green and blue made a full color image. While an image was separated I would draw paint scratch each black and white record before reassembling them on color film using the RGB filters. Making colors using a black crayon or paint was intense, educational, but very time consuming, 3 to 6 months an image. I also felt graphic instead of photographic. One night I took the camera and filters that I had been using to reassemble my drawings onto film, outside into my backyard and pointed it at this statue and cactus. The next day I saw this film and the road ahead.” - John Hesketh ReviewI think this video overall did a good job explaining light painting and how to do it. I learnt that you can use either a digital or a film camera as long as you can select the shutter speed. I think this video got to the point about explaining the instructions and didn't blab about pointless things and I learnt quite a lot from the video. They gave you options in case you didn't have the things you needed, which helped a lot. They also showed that you the edits that you could do to the finished image to improve it.
I like that in light painting you can always mess around with it, it doesn't have to perfect and it's just something to have fun with and you can create so many great light paintings even if it isn't as professional and the advanced ones. I think it's something that everyone can do even with any of their abilities. |
Light Painting TaskThe settings that i remember we used at the start of the task was f4 and 10 seconds, the images weren't as good so we then altered it to f4 8 seconds, which then the images worked better. Some of the images worked really well, where it was thought about whereas other images were testers which were not so great. My favourite images were the multiple images that we used a flash to make them, the image with ben and his three figures, which i really liked.
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Light Painting Clara's Group 16/05/14
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