20 Better Available Light Digital Photography
On the night of July 30, 1999, Canadian Larrie Thomson packed
up his camera and set out for a rural county dump to try some
light-painting techniques he’d read about. You can read the
details of Larrie’s foray into the night, dodging skunks and
wandering around in the dark, in the Who section of his Web site
(www.nightphotographer.com), but fi rst click the Photos link
and prepare to be amazed. His 13 galleries of unmanipulated
hand-painted night photographs captured in-camera are a joy to
explore. As interesting as Thomson’s monochrome photographs
are, his color shots will stop you in your tracks. Using his light-
painting techniques, the decommissioned Turner Valley Gas
Plant industrial facility takes on a Blade Runner look combiningLarrie Thomson photographed this abandoned pickup truck near Ryerson, Saskatchewan. His “Painting with
Light” tips include the following: “Be creative when planning your lighting. Look for places to hide from the
camera while illuminating the scene. You can also add light from within view of the camera but this is tricky
and prone to errors. For deep, saturated colour work the dark side of your subject. Color added to an object
bathed in bright moonlight will be washed out, failing to register at all.” Larrie exposed this shot for one
minute and 30 seconds at f/5.6 using Kodak EPT 160 ISO tungsten slide fi lm under a partly overcast sky.
The same effect would have been produced with a digital camera using an ISO setting of 160 and a Tungsten
White Balance setting (see Chapter 4). The foreground lighting was added with a fl ash unit from left and
right of the camera location. The bullet holes in the windshield were highlighted with a laser pointer from
left of the camera by setting the pointer to project a horizontal line and passing it up and down over the glass.
The cracks and holes refl ect the light back at the camera, whereas the intact areas allow the light to pass on
through. © Larrie Thomson, http://www.nightphotographer.com.