Some new light paintings

I took some new pictures of light paintings on the weekend. Both of them have been taken in that old industrial area, where I took some shots some days ago, already. Here are the two that I like the most:

Light orb in an old industrial area.

One is a light orb. A circular light sphere created with two torchlights on a short string. This shot has been taken in an unused old building in complete darkness, which was kind of awkward. I am quite pleased with the result, though. Not 100% circular, but quite nice for just the first try. For the future, I would like to take a shot of such a light sphere on the great wall. I have some nice ideas and plan to put them into practice later this summer when it gets a little cooler and more pleasant to hike. Read more & leave a comment…

Paint Sculpture Tutorial – Part VIII: Post production and final statement

The post-production is fairly easy and there is not much to do if the shot is prepared well. I sometimes stamp out some drops of paint flying around and disturbing the entire composition or some areas where the background is not 100% black or white. Apart from that, I apply only some exposure correction or level adjustment and some sharpening. Voila, that’s it. Read more & leave a comment…

Paint Sculpture Tutorial – Part VII: Background

For the beginning, a black background is much easier than a white one.  All you need is a black surface in the background and some snoots or gobos on your flashes to prevent any light from spilling onto the background. After some shots, it will be covered with paint drops so a careless flashing could result in much more work during post production, when you have to remove the colorful blurry spots in the background of the image. Read more & leave a comment…

Paint Sculpture Tutorial – Part VI: Sound setup

2" Speaker

The sound that is sent through the speaker is (besides the paint) the most important aspect that shapes the sculptures and influences the entire picture. Three aspects of the sound have to be considered and will have a serious impact on whether the paint is blown up into the air to spill on your ceiling, or if it just starts vibrating and forms beautiful sculptures.

• The volume or intensity of the vibration obviously has an impact on the intensity of the paints’ reaction to it. A loud sound will make the paint explode into the entirety of the room you are working in, while a very low volume will have no impact on the drops at all. You have to experiment a little bit to find the right amount to fill your frame but not end up sticking at the ceiling. Read more & leave a comment…

Steel wool fireworks tutorial

Some time ago, I shot these photos of steel wool fireworks in an old Beijing industrial area. I just found this great tutorial on these steel wool shots by PhotoExtremist. Read more & leave a comment…

Paint Sculpture Tutorial – Part V: The paint

I usually use gouache paint.

For the paint, you can basically use every liquid paint you can think of. However, there are a couple of things to consider before starting taking the pictures. Triggered by the speaker, the paint spills all over the place where I take the pictures. Therefore, I only use water-based paint that can be easily washed off the wall, the floor, the laptop, the camera, etc. If you have to use chemical solvents to wash it off, it is no good idea to expose your equipment to the paint. Read more & leave a comment…

Paint Sculpture Tutorial – Part IV: Triggering the flashes

Though I use the Stopshot for triggering, there are several devices that do the job. Depending on your budget, you can either buy a fully assembled out-of-the-box device like the Stopshot and the Mumford time machine, or you can chose to assemble and/or programme your controller by yourself like you have to do with Arduino controllers or the Hiviz trigger.  Apart from that you can also try to play around with electronics and trigger the 5V input of the flashguns with any type of DIY equipment. There was a comment on my original tutorial that listed a couple of ways to trigger the flashes with some basic electronics. It might give a first idea for everybody who wants to come up with any self-made solution. Read more & leave a comment…

Steel Wool Fireworks

Locomotive breath - Steel wool fireworks

I saw a tutorial on firework photography recently with some words about using burning steel wool for light painting. Needless to say, I wanted to try to do the same and here are the results. I bought some #0000 steel wool, took my camera and set off to 751, an old industrial area outside the city. The area is full of old heavy industry facilities, interconnected with pipes and metal gangways. The area is now home to several galleries and cafes that provide a nice lighting at night. The old industrial background provides the perfect environment for the steel wool fireworks I had in mind. Read more & leave a comment…

Paint Sculpture Tutorial – Part III: Flash setup

The Yongnuo 560 flashgun.

The flashguns I use are each one Canon 580exII and 430exII and one Yongnuo 560. The Yongnuo flashgun does not have any fancy functionality like TTL etc., but has to be operated completely in manual mode. I guess this is not the right flash if you just buy one flashgun and use it for daily photography, but for these type of pictures, where I am working in manual mode anyway, it is really a deal. Here in China, it costs around USD 50 and offers everything you can expect for this money. Not the quality of a Canon 580exII, but also only 10% of the cash. Read more & leave a comment…

Paint Sculpture Tutorial – Part II: Camera setup

The Canon 60D Digital SLR.

All cameras have a so-called shutter lag. This is the time between pushing the button and the camera taking the picture. For small point-and-shoot cameras, this can be around a second, while modern digital SLRs have a shutter lag in the range of a tenth or a twentieth of a second. For my own Canon 60D I made a series of measurements to find out that its shutter lag is pretty precisely 85 milliseconds. This delay is too long for taking pictures of paint sculptures. With a sound frequency of 120 Hz on the speaker, the rubber skin would have already gone through 10 periods of vibration when the camera is ready to take the picture. Therefore, I work with long exposures in a dark room. I usually use the bulb mode and an external shutter release and take the picture by firing the flashes in the right moment. Read more & leave a comment…