Inside Student BlogsLight Painting: Part DeuxFreiburg, Academic Year 2009-2010
I thought it would be appropriate to post a few more light painting pictures, as we’ve been spending quite a bit of time with that in the last few weeks while working on our final film project for an IES course.
We decided to do a stop-motion light art film, basically to see if something like that is even possible. It’s been rather tedious, but a lot of fun as well. These are some pictures that were made during that whole process (but none from the film… those will come later this week).
It will be about 1 and a half or 2 minutes long. And although hat sounds pretty short, considering the fact that we took nearly 1000 pictures in the nighttime, with each picture lasting between 15 and 30 seconds, while running around in the frame the whole time, it’s not too bad. Now I just hope it turns out decent! For now, enjoy these random light painting photos.
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- Flash with yellow crepe paper and a 1 euro light I found at a store in Freiburg.
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- This was just a random test photo for the exposure in a frame of our stop motion film.
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- My room has become something of a test lab for the different light painting techniques.
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- This was made with a penlight and a CD.
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- One of the other light art mediums is stencils. I wasn’t sure what to make for the first one, as I wanted to see what it looked like before trying something crazy. An IES cutout was easy enough.
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- I don’t really know what to say about this one.
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- Jeremiah and I ran around for that whole week they were visiting. This was from one of those nights. That’s me in the background there.
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- Sparklers, yarn, and a key (for weight) all tied together and spun for a little while.
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- Here are a few of the little tools we’ve been using.
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June 15th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Josh,
These are so cool. I read your first post about the light paintings and now this one. I think I understand how you’re achieving the look of the light. What I don’t get is how you’re incorporating people in them – specifically, how are you getting transparency effects on people, like the one of you and Jeremiah, where you’re in the background? Keep up the great work.
June 15th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Thanks man. yeah, the transparency thing is simply achieved with a longer exposure. That picture of the headstand and jump in the background is actually me twice… I put a blue film over my flash because we knew there was green and red light leaking in from behind the bushes, and had my brother flash it as i was in the in the back, mid jump, and then again after i sprinted forward and got into that little headstand. I was trying to frame my other self in the back, but it still ended up looking pretty cool, even though I didn’t quite get the background me in a V frame. The longer the exposure (and the weaker the flash), the more transparent the subject will look in a longer exposure.
June 16th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Hey I absolutely love your work! I saw this from IES’s link on facebook. I’m a big fan of photography too but I never did something this creative (only played around with multiple exposures and stuff). I’m in the European Union program and now working in Brussels but will return to Freiburg at the end of the month. If you are still around, could you teach me these techniques?
June 19th, 2010 at 5:06 am
Hey Christina, thanks! I’d love to run around Freiburg and show you how to use some of the lights, but unfortunately I’ll be leaving in 10 days, and have quite a few things to do before that. If you happen to be here before the 29th you could send me an email and we’ll see if we can work something out. Otherwise at the very least I’d be more than happy to let you know how I did all of them.
One of the best parts of messing around with light painting is simply that there are no hard and fast rules, and it very often simply depends on the situation and what light sources you have available (flashlights, candles, torches, led wands, glow sticks). Lots of trial and error. But that’s what’s so great about it–the process is part of the product… almost as if it’s sort of performance art, you know? (and it’s just really fun to do with a group of friends).
In any case, shoot me an email and we’ll see what’s up in the next week. Take it easy.