Light Painting

Since buying my dSLR camera a month or two ago, I have been too busy for too much experimentation.  I've had the opportunity to shoot a decent number of photos, but the manual settings is something I still have yet to master.  However, there was one camera trick I was determined to try as soon as possible: light painting.  "Light painting" is something you have probably seen on the internet at one point or another.  It gives the appearance of someone writing, drawing, or "painting" with light in a photo.  Below are a few internet examples of light painting.  The Batman one is my personal favorite...

The steps are actually simple, but execution is harder than it looks.  The only supplies needed are a camera that allows you to adjust the exposure, a flashlight/glowstick/sparkler/laser pointer/light-producing object, a dark setting, and a tripod.  The longer exposure will allow light to come in for a greater period of time, allowing you to draw shapes and have them "stick".  The tripod holds everything steady and keeps the shot from being blurry. 

To take the shot, all that is required is to:

1) Set your camera for a longer exposure.  If you're trying to do something fairly complex, you might want to set it for something on the longer side.  

2) Position your shot correctly before you shut off the lights (if indoors).  If outdoors, try not to stand under street lights or by a busy street where headlights could ruin your photo.

3) Press the shutter button and proceed to "paint" your image.  Quickly draw or write whatever you want before the shutter closes again.

4) Check the resulting image and try again if necessary.

Those steps make light painting seem remarkably easy, but as I said before, that is not necessarily the case.  On a whim, while home over Thanksgiving break, my brother, sister, and I went downstairs to my brother's pitch black room and tried out this technique for the first time.  It definitely takes a great amount of practice and a little artistry to get this to yield interesting results.  Below are some of our feeble first attempts at light painting.  I'm pretty happy with the photos we got considering this was our first try.  If we get the chance (perhaps over Christmas break) to try this out again, I'll be sure to post updates.

As you can see, we kept it pretty basic.  Easy shapes, easy letters, etc.  However, now that we've at least figured out how to get something to show up on the photo, I think we can work on putting together something a little more impressive in the future.  

Anyway, I invite you to try this out.  It's really fun to do (albeit a bit frustrating and time consuming if you mess up), and it has the potential to result in some really awesome photos.