Workshop: Light Painting, Jan 11
(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
Off the Mississippi
Just returned from the Mississippi River Delta region, on assignment for National Geographic Adventure Magazine.
Writer Kim Brown Seely, my assistant Christine Kornylak and I traveled from Clarksdale to Greenville, MS for five days on the river. With us were also a veritable summit of biologists, birders and fish experts.
Needless to say it was an amazing trip, and I have my editing work cut out for me. I will be sharing some multimedia on the region, people and music, as well as gear reviews on this blog in the next several weeks, so stay tuned!
Two Cyclists Walk into a Winery…
Unless noted, All photos (c) 2006 Andrew Kornylak. Please contact me if you would like to license, download, or link to these images.
If your idea of a prenup’ activity is waking at dawn, slipping into your spandex and sitting on a tiny titanium seat for a few hours, you might just be a cyclist.
And if you’re from around here, you probably know elite mountain bike endurance racer Eddie O’Dea and his equally talented cyclist wife Namrita (formerly Kumar), who were married in Dahlonega, Georgia on October 21. I had the pleasure of shooting their wedding – and following them around a morning ride in the epicenter of biking in the South.
My wife rides, and I occasionally get silly on a mountain bike, but still I had never been to Dahlonega, tucked into the North Georgia mountain foothills about 1.5 hours north of Atlanta. I’ll second what every cyclist already knows; this place is sweet leaf.
Above: A Creek near Blackstock Vineyards, Dahlonega, GA: Nikon D2X, 17-55mm f/2.8, 1/125 @ f/7.1
After shooting a bachelorette gathering a couple nights before, I arrived before sunup at the Blackstock Vineyard, the site of the ceremony, and where I would meet Eddie and Namrita for their morning ride.
I drove around the area for a while, to get my bearings and a few sunrise shots, so when they showed, I had a route in mind: some rolling stretches and some side-roads with nice scenery.
Above: Namrita Kumar and Eddie O’Dea, Pre-Wedding: Nikon D2X, 105mm f/2.8 VR, 1/400 @ f/5
At the end of the ride, we ended up at a cabin where Eddie was staying with some friends. While he relaxed and Namrita headed back to her place, I visited the winery to suss out a good portrait location and talk to the vineyard staff, who were all very accomodating and helpful – we set aside a station for me to access power for the laptop, which I brought in case my Hyperdrive HD80 portable hard drive went down (It didn’t).
The ceremony would end just before sunset, and there was a great spot behind the loading dock which would be shaded and show the sunset on the mountains behind the portrait group. Shaded is good, since I planned to light the portraits, and I wanted to keep the light simple and controlled while the sun did its thing.
Above: Namrita and Eddie O’Dea, Blackstock Vineyards, GA: Nikon D2X, 17-55mm f/2.8, 1/250 @ f/5, Profoto 7b
The wedding went smoothly and as usual, was a lot of work and tons of fun. To compete with the hordes of digitally-armed guest shooters at a typical wedding these days (and I’ve been one of them), you’d better expect to get there earlier, be there later and work hard!
You can check out a slideshow of the wedding at
www.akpclients.com/ODeaWeddingTop50/index.html
-akorn
Workshop at Arabia Mountain
Unless noted, All photos (c) 2006 Andrew Kornylak. Please contact me if you would like to license, download, or link to these images.
On October 6, I gave a workshop for the Showcase School on “Location Portrature.” The workshop was held at Arabia Mountain, a beautiful and relatively untrammeled piece of granite 20 minutes outside Metro Atlanta.
Above: Full Moon and Wildflowers, Arabia Mountain, GA: Nikon D2X, 105mm f/2.8 VR, handheld for 1/80 @ f/3
We had eight people in our workshop, and perfect weather. Starting on the lower mountain, we hiked to a small lake, discussed lighting concepts and dove right into the techniques and equipment available to light subjects outdoors, from simple reflectors to portable studio strobes. Along with the Nikon gear, I packed the full gamut of lighting tools, from SB800s to a Profoto 7b kit, plus reflectors, diffusers, etc. The emphasis was on shooting digital, and all the participants brought their own digital SLRs. One participant also brought an excellent Norman 400B kit, which we put to good use.
My (admittedly un-academic) approach to lighting is based on the concept that your light source forms an image on your subject, and you are capturing not only the form of your subject but also the substance of that reflected image. Sound heady? Consider a mirrored ball: an image of the world around it is reflected off its surface. If you photograph the ball, you are really photographing the way the world is reflected on that ball, not just the ball itself. Consider how this can simplify seemingly complicated lighting situations…
OK. Enough jibber jabber. The students in my class were mostly advanced in their photography skills, so it kept me on my toes. I think at a that level of skill, the difference between making good photos and great photos is more about inspiration and motivation. Thats where Herb comes in. No, that kind of herb!
Above: Herb Bowens, Atlanta, GA: Nikon D2X, 17-55mm f/2.8, 1/250 @ f/7.1, Profoto 7b
Herb Bowens is a dancer and performer from Atlanta with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working with this year. I had asked Herb at the last minute to be a model for our workshop, and he came through. Herb is a wonderful model because not only is he great looking, but he also has a fun personality and is very imaginitive.
So once Herb showed up, I think the motivation in the class jumped to a new level.
By the end of the class, we were working with some beautiful light on the top of the mountain, and the students were getting some great shots!
Above: Workshop Participants, Arabia Mountain, GA: Nikon D2X, 105mm f/2.8 VR, 1/320 @ f/8, Norman 400B
The next week I held a review session at the Showcase School, where we enjoyed snacks and wine, and critiqued eachothers photography from the workshop.
Here is some of the students’ inspired work:
Above, photo by Tim Mueller: A portrait of Herb is made dramatic by good angling of the harsh sunlight to create an outline of strong features and posing of his sunglasses. A silver reflector was positioned by another student to the right. Great shot!
Above, photo by Robin Bise: The class jumped into action when we passed a flowering plant with purple berries. It was a little chaotic with everyone alternately taking turns directing Herb, holding reflectors, and shooting. Robin came away with a great intimate shot here, with good depth of field to make the subject stand out from the messy background, simplified further by her post-production. I like it a lot!
Above, photo by Wayne Ware: A very nice portrait of Adrian Ferrier here is enhanced by the posing of his camera on his shoulder, which picks up the pleasing late sun to the left and the well-positioned gold reflector to the right. Another student was also holding a diffuser over Adrian’s head to soften the sun. The key here was that Wayne moved around Adrian until both composition and light were maximized.
Above, photo by Adrian Ferrier: Adrian made great use of a wide-angle lens and filled the frame with a dynamic pose here.
Above, photo by Lisa Santore: This great action shot caught a nice pose and balanced the sunset exposure with the Norman 400B strobe. The composition is nice too; shooting from very low placed Herb against the sky rather than the dark ground below.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the workshop, and I look forward to seeing you again!
-akorn
