Light Painting.
Dean Chamberlain is the father of light painting photography and has been capturing photographs since 1967. It was his passion for photography that led him to the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1974 to pursue a fine art degree. During Dean’s time at Rochester in 1977 he discovered light painting photography. Dean was the first person to coin the term “Light Painting” for his open shutter long exposure photographic technique. He has worked with his unique art form ever since in his various works. Dean has created stunning portraits of well known individuals such as David Bowie and Paul McCartney but my favourite photo he has taken is "standing tulips". In this photo he paints a bunch of tulips with different coloured lights to create a beautiful photo that has inspired my final piece.
Dean Chamberlain is the father of light painting photography and has been capturing photographs since 1967. It was his passion for photography that led him to the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1974 to pursue a fine art degree. During Dean’s time at Rochester in 1977 he discovered light painting photography. Dean was the first person to coin the term “Light Painting” for his open shutter long exposure photographic technique. He has worked with his unique art form ever since in his various works. Dean has created stunning portraits of well known individuals such as David Bowie and Paul McCartney but my favourite photo he has taken is "standing tulips". In this photo he paints a bunch of tulips with different coloured lights to create a beautiful photo that has inspired my final piece.
To create the image above I used small coloured LEDs, an LED
on a string, a LED Maglite and a very long exposure.
After a few experiments I realised I needed to use a Black background as the long exposure meant the room I was in, became visible. The rose in a bottle photograph was done in two stages, the spiral light pattern was created using an LED finger light on a string. Before closing the shutter, I used a Maglite to paint the bottle and the rose. The coloured Roses were achieved using a single white rose ‘painted’ with red, blue and green LED finger lights. About ten seconds with each light gave best results. The total exposure was about 50 seconds per photo. I had to take care to mask the light source with my hand so that it didn’t show on the final image. |
GRAFFITI
Here the buildings are highlighted, while the forces of nature which are in the process of engulfing it surround the brickwork and graffiti in darkness to create a natural vignette boarder. I achieved a much more controlled and pleasing lighting effect by highlighting only the areas I wanted to show up by ‘ writing over them’ with a torch. I would not have been able to achieve the same effect using only a flash or a fixed floodlight. |