Recently, i've been very interested to try this technique out... Imagine a totally blank canvas. Now imagine that canvas is the frame inside your 35mm DSLR. When you open the shutter to allow light through the iris, you start the magic! Now lets say you have 100% control over the amount of light that enters your frame... hey, last time I checked, I did! Ok cool, no that you understand the basic principal of starting this artistic process, turn on your flash.....50+ times... take a million photos....whatever. Follow a few rules.... 1. determine your ambient light's exposure in your frame... ex: bright sky, tungsten street lights, etc. 2. tune in your flash to control the light (manual flash mode). 3. Walk around blasting the flash aiming it all around highlighting special parts of the frame. 4. Combine each frame using tons of masking in photoshop...
I first gazed at the creative vision of fellow light master, John Michael Cooper. I met up with John at the Vegas get together in the desert mountains where we was doing one of concept sessions. Jason Dominguez and I stood there watching him and really scratched our heads and let the creative juices start to flow.....
Thanks John for your time during this workshop! I really enjoyed watching you work!
My bud Jason Domingues was recently playing around with this technique... He told me that for some of these, he was shooting 100 frames.... he may only use 40-50 or so frames in post production.....picking and choosing the best as each frame gives another layer possibility... you can light whatever you want!
Thanks for the cool shots guys! I'm eager to go out there and try this one myself....i'm sure I'll botch it real good on my first try :)
Cheers!
matt
Hey,
Nice concept and great look man! I was wondering as with light painting, you obviously have plenty of ambient light, as apposed to light painting where the opposite is true. Although, that would depend on the look one if going for an¥ how. Here is my point, the light seems or appears to be very concentrated and concentric as apposed to spread out. Are you using a snoot over the head to keep the light from spreading all over the place. Also, with the ambient light, how do you keep from being in the frame of picture. I guess you would mask your self out of the frame where ever you end up appearing right. That would make sense now that I think about it. Use only those areas where you dig the light, and remove or mask your self from the frame and utilize only the portions of the frame that would make any sense. Sorry for the rant! Thanks for the post.
it’s a variation of painting with light. I played with less layers but the same concept for this:
http://www.photographyri.com/index.php/2008/06/10/painting_with_light
it’s really just combining painting with light and compositing.
Hey contrats on a much more readable theme. At this time of the year, I’m avoiding all the post production I can - yikes!
That is such a great idea! I guess it takes allot of patience on your part, and the b&gs;part, although I guess you just light them once in a way you’re happy with, then let them wander off while you go crazy with your speedlight.
Probably won’t try it on my next wedding, I think I’ll save this for an E-sesh.
Glad to see the blog back up matt. I didn’t realise it was up and running again, seem to be having some problem with the RSS or whatever.
Take care
There’s a guy with the user name froodmat who does something very similar with torches (flashlights) over on flickr. I’ve used it a couple of times for trick multiple exposures - I’ll find the pix when I get home and put them on flickr.
I was facinated by this… SOl was drooling. We can’t wait to setup a moment like this.... Has anybody else had any luck or experience shooting with this technique?