You could use any light source to try this: a candle, a street lamp or the moon. The important part of this technique is that it is ‘kinetic’ – this relates to the movement of the camera, not the light. By kinetic light painting, we mean you keep the camera moving with a long exposure, exposing from a fixed light source. This is the easiest light painting technique to try out. Some may require a tripod and some other accessories – but all should be relatively inexpensive. So by the end of this guide, you will be able to go out and try light painting tomorrow, if you’d like to! Creative Light Painting Techniquesįirst off, four basic light painting set-ups you can use. Some require you to create light – others use ambient or natural light.Īll are easily accessible and achievable for anyone with a camera (or even a phone!). So from here we look at light painting set-ups, techniques and tips. You can also use ambient light from street lamps or the headlights of passing traffic at night. However, you don’t need to create the light yourself. From sparklers, LED strings or headlights to purpose-made ‘light sticks’. Moving a light in front of a camera is only the start – try moving the camera or have the subject move – and there are so many light sources you can use for light painting photographs. From the 1940s onwards, even Pablo Picasso experimented with an electric light pen – see Gjon Mili’s renowned photographs of Picasso’s light painting. We should remember that the word ‘photography’ means ‘drawing’ (graphe) with ‘light’ (photo). Emphasising the link between photography and art the moving light is often called a ‘brush’.Īs far back as the 1930s, Surrealist Man Ray was scribble-writing with light over a self-portrait and the great American dance photographer Barbara Morgan produced some of the first abstract light painting photographs using black and white film. It is used to describe an image created by ‘drawing’ or ‘painting’ with a moving light and capturing it on camera, usually with a long exposure. Note that all of these images are interpretations of the Society Leader (1951), and shouldn’t be used for archival reference.Light painting is incredibly varied and goes by several different names – ‘light drawing’, ‘painting with light’, ‘light art’ – but ‘Light Painting’ is the most commonly used term in photography. The extruded elements, below, show one such experiment. This led me to create a digitized version in SketchUp that I could manipulate at will. The geometric character of the Society Leader was also suggestive to me of a three-dimensional profile akin to a highrise cityscape. It was this instance I decided to work with, using photos taken on site, 3D modeling software (SketchUp), and my newly acquired Pixelstick. The particular 35mm example I found in Gatineau had a distinct colour caste, rendering the various elements in rich hues of yellow, orange and red. This important industry organization is known colloquially as ‘SIMPTEE’.) (Appropriately, the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, founded in 1916, officially changed its name to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers in January 1950. Townsend in the May 1951 issue of the Journal of the SMPTE, the Society Leader, like the Universal Leader that followed it some fifteen years later, was intended to address the specific needs of the emerging television broadcast industry. (The numbers SIX and NINE are also spelled out in text only.) Originally proposed by C. One of the most captivating discoveries I made was a lovely example of the Society Leader (aka All-Purpose Leader), easily identifiable by its countdown, featuring concentric circles with four arrows pointing to the tops and sides of the frame. My residency at the Banff Centre in October 2014 gave me an invaluable opportunity to start working with the materials I’d accessed in the nitrate film vaults at the Library of Congress in Culpeper VA, and during a day-long visit to Library and Archives Canada in Gatineau QC.
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