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CHAPTER
NIGHT AND LOW-LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY / Light Painting

The flash

The flash unit is not made for light painting, but

it can be used with great success to create cool

images. One of my earliest experiments with this

type of photography was in college when I would

photograph people from my dorm sitting next to

themselves. For this type of image, I set the cam-

era on a tripod and locked the shutter open.

While the subject was sitting on the left side of

the scene, I would trigger the flash from the right.

Then, while the shutter was still open, I would

have the subject change sides and trigger the

flash again, this time from the left. This created a

single frame with the same subject in two places.

Lighting Tools

Think of the light as your paintbrush; different
sizes of beams are like different sized brushes, and
the different powers of the flashlights are like
different amounts of paint. You can use anything
that produces light as a paintbrush. Some of the
more common light “paintbrushes” are flash
units, flashlights, and sparklers. They each work
in the same way, producing light that is captured
on the camera’s sensor, but they produce different
effects. Of course, you don’t have to feel con-
strained by using these tools; you can actually use
anything that produces light, from a cell phone to
a car headlight.

ABOUT THIS PHOTO I handed some sparklers to a couple of assistants and had them draw spirals in the air.
This type of photography is fun to create. Taken at 14 seconds, f/10, and ISO 100.

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