Painting with light

he early sunsets of winter are a hindrance to my workflow, as they put a block on the long days that I’m used to putting in in order to earn a crust, but there are positives as well – I can stick the coal fire on earlier, get comfortable, and lock the world out. There’s also the opportunity to go outside and experiment with stuff just for fun. Shooting the night sky is something I’ve never gotten into, but light painting is.

I use flash painting to light interiors, and it’s an essential part of my twilight exterior workflow (actually, that is a good part of winter – being able to shoot them 6 hours earlier). The other things I’ve had a bash at are lightning shots, and light trails. Both disciplines are easy if you get prepared, and do a bit of experimentation. The shot below was shot in the woods near my house. I set up the camera on a strong tripod, set the focus manually, and set the timer. Exposure was 30 seconds at f22. I had a flashgun, and pointed the back of it towards the camera. The green trail is the rear LED panel, and the red trail is the power-on light. I just walked through the trees, moving the flash up and down and round. At the 25 second mark, I did a couple of pops of flash at minimum power at a couple of points on the ground. Looks ok.

The storms of summer 2015, gave me an opportunity to get out and do some extreme weather stuff. You need to be careful doing this stuff, and wait for the storm to pass, as being on the ground with a chunk of 3-legged metal and an electronic metal device at eye level is just asking for conductive trouble. I shot some storms travelling down the coastline a few miles to my east, then waited for an hour until a huge thunderstorm anvil-cloud passed directly overhead. I positioned myself in a field, and shot directly North at 15 seconds, f16, iso 400 on my D800. Spectacular shots eventually. the lightning flash actually lights the rest of the frame.