There's something quite unique about collaborating with another lightpainter. Place two lightpainters in a dark location and the results are more often than not greater than the sum of it's parts.
Tom and I are both experienced lightpainters, albeit with different styles. If we both had the same style of lightpainting then the results would look boring. But with each of us knowing what to do and how lightpainting works, that different style produces results that we wouldn't otherwise have come home with.
Last night, Tom Hill and I met up at an abandoned and derelict factory within which to wave lights in the dark. This is what I got:
The Most Elaborate Selfie in the World
During the evening's shenanigans, I asked Tom if he wouldn't mind shooting me with a load of the light waving stuff he's famous for. I stood patiently for about 5 minutes, trying not to scratch the itch on my nose while Tom set about wafting the lights around like a madman.
This shot looks like it may have took longer than 5 minutes. The effect here is as a result of using a fractal filter which makes some of lights double up in the image. During the process, while I remained in the frame, Tom walked over to the camera and took off the fractal filter to add some non-fractalised elements.
This was shot in one photographic exposure and at the end I was finally able to scratch the itch on my nose!
Kinetically Engineered Light
Last night, I reset the settings on my camera and didn't realise until I got home that my camera had placed itself in crop sensor mode. Everything I shot last night was low resolution compared to normal.
This is using a fractal filter on and off the camera, then a kinetic movement of the camera downwards to create the stripes of light.
This was a test shot
Sometimes even the test shots look good. This is Tom posing shortly after setting a smoke pellet for atmosphere. The circle is created by the use of a fractal filter.
Experimental with the emphasis on mental
My style of lightpainting doesn't generally include wafting lights around in the dark. So last night I decided to venture out of my comfort zone and wave lights myself. Possibly not the best to do this in the company of such a superior light wafter!
Fractal experimentation
Between us last night we had a few fractal filters to place over the lens. Each behaved slightly differently and we came to conclusion that the quality of the filters wasn't up to par. Only slight movements of the camera up or down caused the circle around the centre to behave differently. This is about the best I got with my light wafting.
Here's yours truly again...
I'm not normally one for posing in lightpainting images because I look like a nightclub bouncer who got fired!
Fail!
Posting a bumch of images here to Hive may make it look like we nailed every shot, every time. Even the best of us make a complete mess of things and sometimes it's good to show the absolute mess we made of this one! Here I thought it was a good idea to defocus the lens mid way through the exposure and Tom had hold of a too bright torch. A collaborative fail!
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.
Social Media
https://www.facebook.com/fastchrisuk
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fastchris/
Lightpainting is a photographic technique in which exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source while taking a long exposure photograph, either to illuminate a subject or to shine a point of light directly at the camera, or by moving the camera itself during exposure. Nothing is added or removed in post processing.
If you would like to see more lightpainting please give the Lightpainters United Community a follow and you will be introduced into the illuminating world of light painting!
If you want to see more examples of lightpainting, feel free to check out these guys:
Mafu Fuma | Oddballgraphics | FadetoBlack | DAWN | Mart Barras | Stefan Stepke | Nikolay Trebukhin | Lee Todd | Stabeu Light | Maxime Pateau | Stephen Sampson | lightandlense | Neil Rushby | L.A.C.E.
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