Light Painting

Apr 4, 2016

1 min read

Have you ever Googled "Light Painting?" Or maybe, came across a picture with epic neon light pictures? Well this is a technique called "Light Painting." The best way to describe this technique is when your surrounding environment is darker than any light source available and creating movements to create pictures.

What will I need to create Light Paintings?

-DSLR (or phone with a long exposure app)

-Tripod (best to reduce movement and keep lights as a solid image)

-Flash light (or flashlight app with different color/ GLOW STICKS?!)

-Creativity

Now how is this done?

If you have access to a DSLR camera (I prefer Nikon) you need to adjust some settings. First is your F-Stop settings. Set your F-Stop to a median numerical value, increasing the number actually decreases the amount of light able to shine through, this helps when you're surrounding environment isn't necessarily 100% pitch black. Okay so you adjusted your F-Stop, now what? Well you want to make sure that your shutter speed is reduced, meaning the time the lens actually captures your image is the movement you want. The longer the shutter is kept open, the more available light is allowed in. One more thing you might want to take note of is, this type of long exposure takes some time to adjust to the settings you want. Just mess around with the settings so that your light shines appropriately.

Here are some of our pictures we drew just recently.

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Now heres where light painting can become fascinating: When you manipulate the lights of large moving objects such as cars on a busy highway pictures. My favorite.