We spent yesterday afternoon and evening at the church and I was too tired to post when I got home. The church is now decorated for Christmas with lovely trees and greens. In the evening we hosted a live nativity for the town after their traditional holiday lights were turned on. When we got home, I did take a moment to do some light writing with the Christmas lights on our deck. It was a simple experiment because my point and shoot is fixed as to how long the shutter can be left open. But I did manage to spell out the message which the angels brought to the shepherds.
@annaruth Thanks Anna- it was fun. I'm intrigued with the o and y shots which acutually have a letter separate from the squiggles. I have no clue as to how I did that! @mrssmith Thanks Carla- I've been inspired by one of my followers/followees- Bev (@prttblues) - who has done some amazing shots with light. This comes nowhere close to some of the fascinating shots she's gotten, but it was a lot of fun to try.
@karenann Thanks Karenann- it's really not hard. You put your camera on the lowest shutter speed and hold it open while you move the camera. You can do any shape or letter, or something totally abstract. You never really know what you're going to get, but you can come pretty close to what you want. @kerristephens Thank you Kerri! @changingtides Thank you Allie! @digitalrn Thank you Rick- oh you'd get it in a snap!
@crickle1969 Thanks Crickle- I was pretty pleased with the experiment considering I couldn't really control the amount of time the shutter stayed open.
Cool! Something I was just thinking about again today for "I need to try"...esp. now with my tripod and DSLR. I will save it for the two week holiday probably. I cannot wait.
@espyetta Oh you will definitely have fun- this was just my little p/s. With a DSLR you'll have more control over the shutter speed. I could only do short designs because the shutter only stayed open for a limited amount of time. But start playing with it now- Christmas lights are really good for this type of shot. Flashlights too! @flydragon Thank you Flydragon!
@summerfield Yes fairly easy- the basic idea is this: dark background, long exposure by keeping the shutter open a long time and light. You move the camera around/across the light object- flashlight, candle, etc- while the shutter is open and close the shutter when you are finished moving the camera. OR you can keep the camera stationary (like on a tripod) with the shutter open while you move the light source- like a flashlight- in front of the camera. In this case, I moved the camera across the Christmas lights on my deck in the shape of the letter I wanted. Then I arranged them in a collage in Picnik. It's really not that different than taking a night shot- except the shutter is open a bit longer, and something purposely moves to make lines. Go for it- I know you can do it!
@potsbypam Some of this is accidental and some of it was planned. I knew with my p/s I could only hold the shutter open for a limited amount of time (there is no bulb setting where you can hold it open indefinitely). So I knew the letters would have to be small and quickly written. I also knew that the glow of the lights would "brighten" the picture and wash out the writing so I would need to limit the amount of light coming in as much as the camera would be able to be set. With that in mind I lowered the exposure time to -2 (the lowest setting I can get in my camera). I then set the ISO to 80 which is also the lowest setting my camera will allow. Then it was just a matter of moving the camera in the shape of the letter while the shutter was open. Again, I kept the letters really small so that it would be a complete letter. The tricky one was actually the J. After two failed attempts (isn't digital review wonderful?!) I figured out it was quicker to do the J upside down! So that was the planned part. The unplanned part was the duplicate letter squiggle you see in the O and Y. Since I was photographing a strand of lights, and I was making smaller letters, every light the came inside the view was made into a letter. It was an added bonus I hadn't planned on, but liked when I saw what I'd gotten on the "big screen" of the computer. Once I had all the letters, it was just a matter of turning the upside down J rightside up and saving it, then uploading the rightside up J, the O, and the Y into Picnik and making a collage out of them in the right order. At first I was going to eliminate the spacing altogether. But it didn't look right because since I'd taken these shots hand-held, they didn't line up exactly. So I put the spacing back in and chose a gold/yellow in the same color category as the lights which made the letters jump out instead of detracting from them. So that is how I actually made a word with light painting. Now, if you have a camera with all the bells and whistles- it's soooo much easier because all you do is set the camera on bulb, find a good light source like a flashlight, go outdoors at midnight, or into a dark room and write away! You can write complete words in the bulb setting. As long as the shutter stays open and the ISO is low, your camera will record every movement of light- it's the same principle as recording the light trails of cars at night.
January 5th, 2012
Leave a Comment
Sign up for a free account or Sign in to post a comment.
@mrssmith Thanks Carla- I've been inspired by one of my followers/followees- Bev (@prttblues) - who has done some amazing shots with light. This comes nowhere close to some of the fascinating shots she's gotten, but it was a lot of fun to try.
@simster Thank you Simmy!!
@kerristephens Thank you Kerri!
@changingtides Thank you Allie!
@digitalrn Thank you Rick- oh you'd get it in a snap!
@flydragon Thank you Flydragon!
this is cool, though. and i like it!
Wow and Awesome!