Light painting

Illuminating a subject with a flashlight over time produces beautiful and visually compelling images. It is also experimental and somewhat unpredictable. It is difficult to consistently produce identical results over the course of several exposures, but with the immediate feedback on the camera’s LCD screen, it’s a fairly simple matter of adjusting the camera’s settings to make the exposure perfect.

The technique

Painting with light is strickly done at night, obviously, because the shutter must remain open for an extended period of time. Too much ambient light overexposes the image.

The length of the exposure will vary, depending on:

1. How long it takes you to move the light over the subject. Larger areas, such as the stand of trees in Lake Martin, Louisiana, below, take a longer period of time compared to the old truck, on the next page.

2. How bright your flashlight is. With fresh batteries and a high intensity flashlight, the exposure time will be reduced. Keep in mind,

though, that you don’t want the exposure time to be too short. You need time to move the light over the subject(s) while the shutter is open so you can create artistic lighting. Make sure you don’t hold the light on one part of the scene too long or it will appear overexposed.

The exposure on the trees in Lake Martin was 8 seconds, and the shutter was open for 5 seconds when I photographed the old truck.

3. The distance from the subject to the flashlight. The Inverse Square Law comes into play in a big way here, and this means the light reduction that occurs is four times as the distance is doubled. In other words, if the distance between the light and the subject goes from 10 to 20 feet, the intensity of light reaching that subject is diminished by four times -- i.e. 2 f/stops. All of this is to say that when light painting distant subjects, you’ll need a longer exposure time.

4. The lens aperture. If you need depth of field and choose a small aperture, this will obviously necessitate a longer exposure time.

5. The ISO setting. The lower the ISO, the longer your exposure time will be. Since you’re shooting in the dark, and because noise shows up readily in the shadows, it’s best to use a low ISO. I usually use 640 or lower for light painting.

I recommend your shutter speed should not be faster than 5 seconds. The slower it is, the more area you can paint and the more control you have over placing highlights where you want them.

open for an extended

Some flashlights have the ability to focus the beam of light so it’s quite narrow. This is best because it gives you maximum creative control.

All exposures are done from a tripod. Multiple-second timed exposures mean you really don’t need to use a cable release or a 2- or 10-second self-timer delay. If there is any vibration caused by depressing the shutter button, it occurs in the dark; no image is recorded until you start the light painting. Therefore, once the shutter is opened, don’t start illuminating the subject for a couple of seconds.

If you make the exposure time long enough -- like 20 or 30 seconds -- you’ll have the chance to walk up to the subject and use the flashlight at an oblique angle for sidelighting. This is very effective because it brings out the texture of the subject, and with the closer proxmity you can target areas you want to emphasize with light. That’s what I did with the dilapidated grain silo in the Palouse area of Washington State, above, and the abandoned, graffiti covered bus, below. With the bus, during the 30 second exposure, I was able to climb inside and illuminate the ceiling. My settings for this picture were 30 seconds, f2.8, and 250 ISO. §