Set your Creativity free with Light Painting Photography
Light Painting is an captivating form of Photography. In simpler terms, Light Painting deals in creating abstracts images with light source. In Light Painting the Photographer is free to express himself. The outcome of the photography depends entirely on the mind of the photographer. The more creative the mind the more beautiful his photographs will be. The technique behind Light Painting is easy & anyone can do it. Let’s have a look at the requirements & technique of Light Painting Photography.
What will you need to do Light Painting Photography?
1. A camera capable of long exposures - film cameras will work OK, but if you really want to get the most out of the shooting session, use a digital camera. You will be able to see the results in "real time" and make corrections as you go.
2. A nice tripod. Since you will be doing some long exposures you want to make sure your camera sits still. If you don't have a tripod you can make one in a few minutes (see this article or this one).
3. A flash light - and by flash light I do not mean flash as in a speedlight, but the flash light or what our British will call a torch.
4. A dark location. This one is tricky. If you are going to shot at home - a dark room will be OK. If you are going to shoot outside - make sure that you are not doing this under a street light, or where a car can come by and "paint its headlight" all over your shot.
How to do Light Painting?
Here is how it's done:
> Set Camera on tripod or on any solid surface & set the shutter speed to about 5 secs or more. Narrow apertures are preferred. If your camera has Manual Focussing then make use of it. Now set a self-timer of about 10 secs on your camera if you wish to do Light Painting yourself & have nobody around you.
> Fire up your laser light and make patterns pointing it towards the camera. To begin with you can try alphabets, then move on to simple shapes like heart, lolipop etc. Once you get comfortable try to make complicated shapes.Tips for Light Painting:
> Use self-timer to minimize the camera shake. Use it even when you have someone to do light painting in front of the camera.
> Light Painting doesn’t necessarily mean moving the light source to create paintings but it can also be done the other way round by keeping the light source stationary & moving the camera in distinct patterns when the shutter is open.
> Preferably do Light Painting at night as then you won’t need to worry about sunlight entering your room.
> If your camera doesn’t allows manual control over shutter speed then try shooting under night mode or night portrait mode. Though it won’t give desirable results still you can atleast create a painting instead of doing nothing.
> Set ISO to the lowest as being dark you don’t want the photographs to come out noisy.
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