What is light painting?
THE light painting is a photographic art, consisting, during a long exposure, of creating shapes with a light source (lamp, phone flash, etc.) in a dark environment.
Using a camera and a light source, you too can have fun trying the experiment. Very fun, the fact remains that the first attempts at light painting are often very messy (no problem, we’re here to learn and have fun). We really enjoyed the experience, and then, we mustn’t hide it, it’s super stylish in the evening to say “I practice light painting”.
How it works?
You don’t need a lot of material, but a lot of patience, especially at the beginning! To create your light painting, you will need:
- Take your shots in a dark space. The less surrounding light, the more visible your light painting will be.
- Know how to use your camera at a minimum, and set it to have a long exposure time, in order to be able to capture all your movements and therefore all fluctuations in light.
You are ready)? All that remains is to find what type of drawing you want to obtain and try the experiment, alone or with friends, for even cooler photos.
What equipment should I use to create my light painting?
Most important first: the camera. No need to buy something fantastic if you just want to have fun for 2 or 3 evenings doing light painting. What you will need to check, if you want to buy a device, is that it has these 3 basic functions:
- Exposure time settings. To create light painting, we start with an exposure time of between 30 and 60 seconds, so this is something essential.
- Sensitivity / ISO settings. Lowering your ISO will be essential to take a beautiful photo. The lower the sensitivity of the sensor, the more your light will stand out in the photo. We are used to working with ISOs between 100 and 300,
to give you an idea. - Adjustments for diaphragm aperture. This is an adjustment that complements that of ISO, in order to let light through or not.
If you really want to take excellent photos, after a lot of practice, the SLR is still the best type of camera for you. But you can still take nice photos with compact cameras, if the model is not low-end. To carry out our tests, we were recommended this very good Reflex, very affordable (€329).
If you want to take your photos alone, it will be very complicated for you to do so without a tripod. In fact, it will completely stabilize your image, which is super important when talking about light painting. We had bought this tripod, the best seller on Amazon, which is perfect, for €25.
Next, let’s talk lights. You can start, as we said before, on a phone flash, it will work very well for testing. But if you want something a little more developed, we recommend two types of lights:
Light painting, why is it GREAT?
We chose to create a TOP on light painting because we have a colleague who practices it, as a hobby, and who introduced us to this art recently. What we liked:
- Accessibility to this art. At first glance, you may find it a bit technical and complicated. So yes, we must not hide it, to take superb photos, it takes a lot of learning, but everyone can put down their camera,
take a light source, turn off the light, and start drawing. We had a good laugh while we all tried to make some adjustments and improve our photos. We can even practice this activity with our children for example, it’s really limitless. - Beyond the technical side, we rely solely on our imagination. Create. That’s all we need to remember. What are your creative limits? You can do anything with light painting, you can imagine anything, you can take photos in every possible and imaginable environment. We can use all the colors, make all the possible figures.
- Human connections. WE noticed it very quickly. When you take a desk, bring key rings, a camera and turn off the lights, it’s fun. And little by little, everyone gets involved, gives their idea, tries to help. It’s great, and when we offered it in the evening, everyone was really keen to try it.
The TOPS light painting photos!
If you like this art, and you have Instagram, we advise you to subscribe to lightpaintingbrushes, an account with more than 450 photos, some more beautiful than the others…
We’ll let you discover what it looks like, just below:
