After the Charlotte DA released that the officer involved in the fatal shooting of Keith Lamont Scott on September 20th will not be charged; protestors meet at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department and march in the streets. During the march at least 4 were arrested.
The ground glistens with frost, grass crunches under my boots, a rabbit darts off at the first sight of this strange figure walking into his domain. My breath is like heavy steam pouring out of a smoke stack tower as it filters through my scarf that keeps my face warm. My hands begin to tingle from the 28-degree air while I wave them as I light paint this humble dump truck, Mack. Am I crazy? Maybe. Is it worth it? Oh, yes! The satisfaction that comes from light painting, for me, is worth the freezing weather. Many times when I light paint my subject seems to take on its own character. As the illumination starts to carve away the night, Mack begins to find his voice, before long the engine begins to rumble and this giant beast comes to life. When I try to explain this addictive art form, called light painting, to people I get a lot of blank stares. So this blog is going to be dedicated to teaching readers how to paint in the cover of night. Not so you can see how hard it can be, but rather, so you can try it yourself and find out how much fun it can truly be.
This dump truck, Mack, sat in the field of some friends of ours who were gracious enough to let me light paint for the night. The number one rule to properly light paint is to have good rapport with the property owners that are kind enough to let you on their property. Be completely transparent even if it is an inconvenience and leave the property just as you found it. Not following these rules could leave you bound up in legal trouble or cause you to be worried for fear of being caught.
Gear is important also. The type of light source that you choose to use is just as important as the subject. When a painter paints they make necessary decisions as to what type of brush they use because no two brushes are alike. Likewise, the same is true with your light source. However, these choices are completely up to you and the aesthetics that you are going for. Next important hardware to have in your camera bag is a remote. I use the Nikon ML-L3. With a remote it allows you, as the photographer, to have long exposures that exceed 30 seconds or longer.
The key is to find the ambient exposure. A time saver is to find your exposure with a high ISO and then drop the ISO down, far down. For example, with my ISO at 6400 the ambient exposure is 10 seconds at f/5.6 would convert to ISO 100 with the exposure at 10 minutes at f/5.6. Reciprocity is a key point to keep in mind with this art form. It is also crucial to think about the time you give yourself to work. A rule of thumb for myself is to get anything five minutes or over, this gives me time to make the magic happen. One other thing to pay attention to is your histogram it will tell you whether your scene is to dark or to bright.
OK for you visual people lets put it together. Here is my step-by-step process of light painting.
Finding the ambient exposure: ISO 6400 10 seconds at f/5.6
Finding the ambient exposure: ISO 100 10 minutes at f/5.6. I decided to go with this one. Note the tail light of a car glowing through the woods. Also, note the star trails, typically anything over thirty seconds you can noticed the trails of light from the earth rotating. (Check out the last photograph, the star trails are emphasized)
First light painting: ISO 100 10 minutes at f/5.6.
Second attempt at light painting: ISO 100 10 minutes at f/5.6. Way to much light. I did 5 minutes of painting on the front, 3 minutes on the side, and a minute inside the cab. I was also not pleased with this one and chose to get in tighter.
Third attempt at light painting: ISO 100 10 minutes at f/5.6. 2.5 minutes of painting on the front, 1.5 minutes on the side and 15 seconds inside the cab.
Fourth attempt at light painting: ISO 100 10 minutes at f/5.6. A little to bright in the cab and a car head light appears through the brush. Though at this point I am close. 1 minute of painting on the front, 30 seconds on the side and 15 seconds inside the cab.
Fifth and final attempt at light painting: ISO 100 10 minutes at f/5.6. According to my histogram my exposure was good and I was pleased with it. The final combination of painting that was needed was 1 minute of painting on the front, 20 seconds on the side and 5 seconds inside the cab.
Here is a video of me light painting Mack. It is not the full duration of my light painting and all painting has been cut in half. Also, the video is not the full ten minutes, it is only 1:56. I hope you can see how the camera sees at night. Note, the red light is my head lamp to ake it easier for you to track me.
Notice the trails of light. As the earth rotates and the stars remain still the camera sees them as light sources and it captures the movement.
If you wish to learn more in depth about Light Painting, I suggest watching this video from B and H featuring Tim Cooper: The Magic of Light Painting
If my blog seems a little odd, it’s because I was up late last night light painting (As Jeff Corwin use to say, “the things I do for you guys.”) So I apologize if my blog seems like that stray line in your math notes from where you fell asleep. Light painting is simply what it says. It is like graffiti, without the harmful fumes that make you see dancing elephants, but best of all it leaves no trace. The process works like this; while photographing in the darkness of night and with the camera’s shutter open (for any amount of time) the photographer aluminates a subject with his choice of light sources. This method works because essentially photography is writing with light and with a blank canvas like darkness the possibilities are endless. I chose to photograph an old church that is near my parent’s house. Now this was not “ideal” because it was beside a road with occasional cars headlights interrupting. Also, down in the parking lot bellow was a street light. However, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. With this mindset I proceeded. I knew I did not want to put my light source straight on the church, because I wanted to show the texture of the old wood. I also wanted the front of the building to be semi consistent light source, but not blowing it out. After a few trials and errors, (a lot of errors) I figured out a time that worked. For this exposer below, my shutter was opened for twenty minutes; yes, you read that right twenty minutes. I painted with the flashlight on both sides of the façade: each side for five minutes. To soften the shadows, I lit the front straight on for four minutes. Lessons learned: have patience, that is the most important thing, also, check the cameras limit on long exposers to prevent noise. It is not exactly what I was going for, but I knew I needed my sleep so I could write my blog for you guys, though a nap might still be in order.
Just 30 minutes off of the South Carolina coast sits an Island named Fripp. Not much happens on this popular golf resort, but when something does happen it does not take long for word to spread around this six and half square mile island. So after a yacht had gone down in the island’s canal it did not take long for tourist to swarm at the mouth of the passage. By the time that we had arrived, crowds were standing around with their smart phones photographing crews dredging the gut of this half-a-million dollar yacht that was in route to its owner. My goal with the images was to get ones that would tell stories from a perspective that others wouldn’t normally get. I wanted to display their story by showing the tools of trade used by the crewmen and the struggle that they faced. However, this was a difficult task when I could not talk to any of them because they were busy, plus, I was just like the other seventy tourists standing around.
My favorite image is “Big Bear.” Hanging above the door on the yacht, was the sign “Big Bear,” which I thought was a perfect description of the man who was working on the boat. He was a man of big stature, burly grey beard and his clothes only added to his masculinity. Then it happened, this man went into the ram shackled ship. It was as if the stars aligned just for me. So I framed it up and waited for what seemed like an eternity, then the man came out of the wooden door and looked around. As soon as my shutter clicked, I knew I had the image.
Walking home from work, the sun hammering me like a miserable nail. On the concrete a dead leaf lay at my feet looking like my future in this heat. Shriveled and decade from the scorching June temperature. I decided to bring it in from the heat and photograph it. My main light source was one single desk lamp diffused by wax paper taped to a coat hanger and a white poster board to bounce some light in for fill. I really wanted to capture the texture of the leaf, in order to achieve this I lit it from the side. I tried both white and black backgrounds but I thought the black did an excellent job isolating the leaf. My assistant was a 
pair of needle nose pliers that held the leaf still for me. The problem that I encountered was that the depth of field was so shallow and the leaf was not flat. Trying to have the whole leaf in focus with a 60 mm macro lens was impossible, even at f/22. However, one frame in particular spoke to my child spirit, in a white scene stands a single leaf that resembles a tree. 
The image looked like a page out of a book that I used to read as a kid, “Kipper.” White pages with minimal color and scenery made for great adventures for any child reader. This blog post was intended to be like the leaf, transparent. I did not use any fancy equipment to photograph this single leaf likewise the images that came from it were as simple as the set up. The moral of this story is, keep it simple.
This blog was actually written for my wife. She really liked these photographs. She is the back bone of this blog. Every post is proof read by her. She is fantastic and I love her dearly!
This image resonates with me a great deal. To me, this photograph captures the Chicago that no one remembers; yet it is the most telling. A quiet train station is a welcoming site after being on the busy streets of the “Windy City” Chicago, Illinois. The old dilapidated wood creeks as we walk across the platform that appears to have had better days. The sounds of car horns and vehicles going through streets rise with the wind. A pigeon flies by and roosts on the steel bridge that runs horizontally with the train tracks. It’s rusted steel beams, and paint chipping off, shows how life intersects in so many ways here in this heavy populated city. Brick buildings run alongside the track, their staircases run up the back of the building in the form of a maze. The cloudy day casts diffused light beautifully on the train track. Hard highlights reflect off the tracks allowing one to see the tracks as far as the eye can see; almost as if to show that life still goes on inside the cramped city life.
Myrtle Beach, SC
The sun rises on the streets casting shadows on my hopes of capturing an image during this “Golden Hour.” Construction workers, and early morning joggers stare at me as I wonder the streets of this very popular American vacation spot. Here at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina it usually is not hard to find action, but that is generally at night. The problem is that it is not night it is early in the morning. I struggle to find something that will please my need for good composition, going past streets and alleyways with nothing. The idea of giving up creeps in the back of my mind as my stomach growls for breakfast. However, the thought of returning with no image would make this small trip insignificant, I had to photograph something. The next alley caught my eye, a two-story motel with interesting designed passages similar to a Middle Eastern architecture. Its concrete walls and columns, vivid with blue and white, hinted to Mediterranean influence. Looking at this structure straight on I could see the final image in my head (or as David duChemin would say, the “vision.”) I would get as close as I could to filling the frame with this beautiful structure and in post crop it down to the first floor only. Three days later I sit at my computer re-thinking the original composition and the crop that I had in mind. After sometime of staring at it I decide to include the second floor, and like a flower, the image blossomed. The first floor is nice, but for me it was too dark and too much weight with color, if that’s possible. With the second floor it gives the image context and plus I am a sucker for patterns. This is why it is important to have time away from when the image captured and post work. Having time in between, allows the photographer to separate themselves from their preconceived ideas, “calm” down, and have an open mind.
My original idea
Gathering inspiration from photographers in our past, one of the well known photographers is Irving Penn. His knowledge of shapes and subject matter was astonishing. His first image that I ever saw was “Frozen Food with String Beans” 1977, this image blew me away, so when the assignment was given to photograph fruit, I tried my own rendition of Irving’s amazing image.
Who was Irving Penn you ask? He was a photographer in the modernism period. Reflecting himself, his work was very broad and unique. Well known for his still life work, his images caused one to really think about what we consider “normal” or “strange” in a somewhat humorous way and made the viewer think through the many labels we give things (ex. Image with Rhino Mouse shot in 1991.) We as photographers should strive to be like Penn and be bold with our imagery.
Thank you for all your patience. My blog post will be moved to Wednesdays now. I am a student and I have most of my classes on Tuesday and trying to keep with a weekly post on Tuesdays has proving to be a challenge. Thank you for being understanding and I hope to see you (figuratively) on Wednesday.
-Tyler Brock
Tyler Brock 