January 13, 2008

Painting With Light

In the image above I have the model light herself with the flashlight

I was originally thinking of posting a how to on the basics of painting with light, but then I thought, "How boring!" I couldn't bear the thought of subjecting you to images of things being drawn in mid air, or people being outlined with flashlights. I did a model test shoot years ago in my studio in Toronto using only a small flashlight to light the model. These are some of the images form that shoot.

The setup I used was simple, a black bench, my camera on a tripod set at f16 & bulb with a cable release attached, and the model. Oh yah, and my trusty little flashlight. I tried to keep the exposure time under 30 seconds to keep sensor noise to minimum. Grab your camera, tripod, a flashlight, and a cable release and find a dark room or go outside at night and give it a try. It's not as hard as it looks. And have fun!

This image looks blurry, but look closely at the reflection of the flashlight in her eyes and eye lashes... It's tack sharp!


I intentionally asked the model to keep looking at the camera while she moved her head


I you have any questions or comments feel free to post them below. And post some links to your images too.

No comments: