The BlogKor

(c) 2007 Andrew Kornylak

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On January 11 I held a Light Painting workshop at the Cator Woolford Gardens in Atlanta for the Showcase School.

What is Light Painting? Broadly interpreted, Photography is about painting with light: The photographer selectively exposes photo-sensitive material to light, creating an image. All photographs are “light paintings” in essence. More formally though, Light Painting is distinguished from “normal” photography by the use of long exposures and mixed light sources to more accurately and selectively control illumination.

Minus the mumbo-jumbo: In Light Painting you use flashlights and stuff to make really cool pictures at night.

Our class of about 10 met at 6:30pm at the Cator Woolford Gardens, a beautiful little gem tucked in behind Ponce De Leon just north of Little Five Points. The Gardens are run by the Frazier Center, a child development center, and they are generally open to events such as weddings and conferences by reservation.

Above: Self-Portrait, Cator-Woolford Gardens, Atlanta: Nikon D2X, Nikon 12-24mm f/4 lens at f/9 for 30 seconds. A little sloppy, but shows what you can do in 30 seconds with some ambient light, a big flashlight and a strobe, all by yourself.

I had explored the Gardens briefly a couple days before the workshop. It was bitterly cold then and we really lucked out with warmer temperatures on the day of. Here I used a 30-second exposure, painting the foreground with a mixture of SB800 strobes and a 2m candlepower light, then jumping into the scene with the light to make multiple images of myself up the stairs. As you can see, I’m really focusing on the task at hand (talking on the cellphone).

6:30PM: A clear night and not too cold! Along with coffee and cookies, I provided a box of flashlights of varying power as well as Nikon SB-800 strobes and some colored gels for the students to experiment with.

Above: Tools of the Trade: Digital SLR, tripod, strobes, flashlights, penlights and big daddy torches.

Experimentation and exploration is the key here. There are no hard and fast rules about light painting, but there is certainly some technical know-how and wisdom that can guide you through a successful picture. We went over a lot of this before setting out to make our paintings. I also got the creative juices going by showing some of my own long-exposure light paintings on an Epson P-3000 Multimedia Storage Viewer. This pretty much replaces my laptop for show-and-tell because its so nice to look at and pass-aroundable.

Above: Fern Bed, Fiery Gizzard Creek, Tennessee: Nikon D2X at ISO 100, Nikon 12-24mm f/4 DX lens at f/22 for 6 seconds. An SB-800 strobe with a Quantum Turbo 2×2 battery was used to selectively light different parts of the scene during the exposure. Tip: If you are using strobes during a long exposure, you should consider using an external battery such as a Quantum for super-fast recycle at high power so you don’t waste precious seconds while the capacitors reload.

Above: A streak of headlamps curves through the woods during a 24 hour mountain bike race in Georgia: Nikon D200 at ISO 400, Nikon 12-24mm f/4 DX lens at f/6.3 for 30 sec. The rider provided the continuous light source, and an SB-800 strobe with a Quantum Turbo 2×2 battery was used to light various parts of the woods during the exposure. I forgot my tripod for this one, so I used a lightstand. Tip: wear black down to your socks.

7pm: The workshop scatters to try some light painting. Everyone had their own approach, and this is what I love about teaching workshops. The results are always unexpected! Here are some excellent frames that were captured by the students:

Above: “I Go Walking After Midnight” – Photo by Patrick Bordnick

Above: “Meeting of the Elders” – Photo by Patrick Bordnick

Above: Photo by Steven Place

Above: “Halloween” – Photo by Judith Murphy Perdomo

Above: “Portal” – Photo by Judith Murphy Perdomo

Above: Photo by Lynn Brauchler

9pm: I took a few moments to experiment with macro shots, using Nikon’s new “105mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor” lens. Of course in this situation, I turned off VR, and focused manually on a tripod. I found some evil-looking poison ivy and a tree bud to study, and painted with a single small flashlight while my assistant Greg Kottkamp fired an SB-800 strobe from above. While I could have gelled the lights to give me a constant color temperature on the subjects, The differences in color temperature between strobes and continuous sources can add flavor to the composition.

Above: Poison Ivy vine, Cator-Woolford Gardens: Nikon D2X at ISO 100, Nikon 105mm f/2.8 VR Micro at f/8 for 15 seconds. I used a Nikon SB-800 fired from camera left, and a Mini Maglight to cast shadows from the right on this evil-looking vine. The mix of color temperatures was further enhanced during the Raw processing by shifting overall temperature to 2500K and boosting the saturation by nearly 50%. All of my light paintings on this page are single exposures with one processing step, but a lot of fun awaits those willing to geek around with multiple exposures and multiple processing layers. Still, its satisfying to concieve and achieve an in-camera gem.

Above: Tree Bud, Cator-Woolford Gardens: Nikon D2X at ISO 100, Nikon 105mm f/2.8 VR Micro at f/22 for 15 seconds. I used a Nikon SB-800 fired from above and left, and a Mini Maglight to model the left and right sides during the exposure. Notice the depth of field is still very shallow at this distance even at f/22, and focus is critical.

10pm: Dinner with Greg at the Flying Biscuit. Thanks for visiting!

-akorn