What is light painting?Light painting (also known as light drawing or light graffiti) is a technique in photography normally performed at night or in a dark area in which exposures are made by moving a torch in your hand and creating images. Painting with light is used in photography to create lighting effects in camera. You can create ghost images and cool effects.
photo is from the Greek phos meaning light and graph is from the Greek graphe meaning writing (together they mean drawing with light). Painting with light can give fun and interesting results. |
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This video shows an animated video of painting with light, showing creative and fun things to do and how you can make something look amazing. Something that seems so easy, creates an extraordinary image that can look however you want. |
Things you need for light painting:
Painting with light is an easy technique and everybody can do it.
You just need the right equipment.. You don't need much, and if you have all the items that you need then it will be very simple and easy.
You just need the right equipment.. You don't need much, and if you have all the items that you need then it will be very simple and easy.
- A camera capable of long exposures - e.g Digital camera.
- A tripod. Since you will be doing some long exposures you want to make sure your camera sits still.
- A flash light - A torch, can be any colour you want.
- A dark location. Make sure if you're going to take the picture outside you must make sure that you're not under a street light or near cars that are going to frequently pass by.
My GCSE light paintings
In my GCSE class we experimented with light paintings, it was really fun.
Below is one of the pictures that I created. It worked well, the exposure wasn't too bright and the picture didn't blur. Also the lights showed up well. I wasn't very sure about what pattern or image to make with the torches so I just messed around with two colours. But actually it almost looks like a heart, which is quite cool. Out of the both of these pictures I think this one definitely worked the best.
Below is one of the pictures that I created. It worked well, the exposure wasn't too bright and the picture didn't blur. Also the lights showed up well. I wasn't very sure about what pattern or image to make with the torches so I just messed around with two colours. But actually it almost looks like a heart, which is quite cool. Out of the both of these pictures I think this one definitely worked the best.
Below is another picture I tried. Which didn't work very well. What we were trying to do is for me to jump up and someone draw a skateboard underneath me. We had a lot of attempts at this and none of them worked very well but this was the worst attempt. You can't see anything but the torch. What went wrong was that we were late with getting the flash on us, so the picture didn't capture us as (obviously) it was too dark.