9

CHAPTER
NIGHT AND LOW-LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY / Light Painting

    ■   Availability of different strengths. The light

output of flashlights is described in a couple of

ways; lumens and candlepower. Candlepower

is actually based on the light output of a spe-

cific candle. The more candlepower, the

brighter the light. The other rating is called a

lumen and it a measurement of how much

illumination a flashlight (or any light) pro-

vides. Again, the more lumens, the brighter

the light. These measurements are only useful

as a guideline because other factors, like the

distance between the flashlight and the sub-

ject and the strength of the batteries, come

into play. The most powerful flashlight with

snoot on the flash and aimed it at the bottle from
the left and fired the flash again. As the room was
dark, I was able to leave the shutter open the
whole time for a total of 13 seconds.

Flashlights

Open up the junk drawer in most kitchens and
you will find a flashlight; if you are a little more
organized (I’m not), then you might even have
the flashlight in an easy-to-find spot if there is a
power outage. My point is that most people have
at least one flashlight in the house. I find that
flashlights are the best light-painting tools for a
wide variety of reasons:

9-5

ABOUT THIS PHOTO This bottle of Rhum was purchased in Tahiti many years ago, and I wanted to make it
stand out against the other bottles. I used a very shallow depth of field, so I needed to make sure that I didn’t use too
much light, as it would easily overexpose. Taken at 13 seconds, f/2.8, and ISO 100.