While I was up at Monument on Wednesday my friends and I had some fun with light painting! As you can see there was so much light with the full moon that we even managed to capture the movement of the people with the torches.
Just remember that the light painting that we will be doing on Monday will be more like the photo above as we will not have the extra light from the full moon to light up our shots. Which is fine as it makes the light trails coming from the torch or torches more pronounced.
You can really have fun with light painting and be as creative as you want! There are so many different ways to pose or objects to light up with your torches. We will also be bringing some sparklers along to see what effect we get when we use them as our light source instead of torches!
But for now let me try and give you a simple explaination of how light painting works.
Basically you want as much light (which you are controlling) as possible to get to the camera. You can do this by either slowing your shutter speed down as much as you can and/or by using a smaller aperture (so a smaller f-stop number which means the aperture or 'hole' will be bigger and therefore let in more light).
1. Set your camera on the tripod and take a sample shot with flash to help you check that your composition is OK.
2. Set the camera to a slow shutter speed and/or a smaller aperture. If you are outside do nothing. If you are inside - this is the time to turn off the lights.
3. Press the button to take the shot. Once the shutter is open use your flashlight to light the stuff that you want to "paint". You can use the flashlight as a brush and "smear" the light or you can use the light as a pen, and write things in the air.
Areas where you go slowly will be more lit then others. Be careful not to linger too much over the same stop - you will burn it (leave large bight spots on the photo).
4. Once the shutter closes, you are a free person again. Inspect your image and make corrections.
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