9
CHAPTER
NIGHT AND LOW-LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY / Light Painting
with a flashlight and a string suspended over your
camera, and it really is very easy to do. It takes a
few minutes to set up, after which you can take
multiple images.
The technical term is physiogram, and by follow-
ing these steps, you can start creating your own in
a few minutes:- Place your camera on a tripod facing
upward. If you don’t have a tripod that
allows your camera to be pointed straight up,
then you can set your camera on a table or
the floor; just be sure not to move it. Attach
a cable release or a remote control to trigger
the camera without moving it. - Suspend a light directly above the camera
on a piece of string. A small flashlight
works great. - With the autofocus on, hold something
bigger than the flashlight where the light
source will be, and press the shutter release
button until the camera focuses.
The second method of combining multiple light
painted images into a single image is exactly the
same as described in Chapter 7, but instead of
using star trail photos, use a collection of light
painted images and see what the results yield.
Abstract Images
Taking painting with light one step further can
create some great abstract images. These images
include moving the light source in a pattern and
recording the results, and randomly allowing the
camera to record a long exposure while in
motion. Figure 9-15 was created by allowing the
camera to record the light, and was a lot easier to
create than it looks.
Light patterns
When I was a child, I saw one of those toys
where you have a pendulum suspended over
sand, you swing the pendulum, and it creates a
design in the sand. You can do the same thing
ABOUT THIS PHOTO
This image is a composite of
seven different light paintings
of my hiking boots combined in
Photoshop using the Screen
and Lighten modes and with
opacity changes to some of the
layers. Each image had a differ-
ent shutter speed, but the aper-
ture was set at f/13 and the ISO
at 100.9-14