Lessons
SPECIAL: Evening Light Painting Session
48:10 2Introduction to Light Painting
17:34 3Shoot: Objects on a Tabletop
22:43 4Shoot: Using Gels
14:55 5Editing: Objects on a Table
25:37 6Morning Q&A and Timing for Light Painting
23:22 7Students Shoot: Vase of Flowers
25:02 8Editing: Student Images and Composites
21:28Review of the Special Evening Shoot
08:25 10Shoot: Scooter Composite
27:07 11Compositing the Scooter
19:39 12Shoot: Light Painting a Person
18:19 13Student Shoot: Iris
05:46 14Light Graffiti
14:10 15Light Painting Example Review
20:09 16Fun and Unique Light Sources
27:42 17Sparkler Painting
10:20Lesson Info
Light Graffiti
I'm just getting a penlight the kind you would have on your key chain and can you get it off of there and then bring it to me s o anyone getting the kind that would be a penlight the kind you have on your key chain and what I'm going to do is I'm not going to try to like the subject at all I'm going to use the subject is something to trace now the first time I do this I need to test it just like with any time you start like painting and that is I don't know how bright this is going to show up in the viewfinder so we'll see you mind if I yeah but yeah we're all set yeah so it f twenty two we might not need f twenty two we might need something else to get this to show us what we need the main reason we've been using enough twenty two is to keep the ambient light out now the sun has changed if we take a break I can see if we can modify that bit but what I'm going to dio is here I just have the penlight holding my hand and I'm gonna point it towards the camera and I'm just going to be trac...
ing my subject and let's see what happens when I do that now this penlight has two settings that has an on off switch and you can just pinch it so if I want to be able to turn it on and off, I'm gonna be doing the pinch e think so. Let's, take a look at just how bright this is just gonna do a small line let's see there's no reason to paint the whole thing if it's gonna be way too dark or too bright. Okay, yeah, that's fine, but you see what you get? Just a straight line. This is what I would call like graffiti so let's see if we can use you as a template here, teo, create some like graffiti. Those hair, your pant leg. Hard thing to remember is what you covering? What? You haven't? Give her a chair if we can legs on the chair let's see what looks like did it close? Yes. Okay, wait let's see what it looks high now? Because of the length of the exposure you can start to see her in there and that's because of the ambient light that we have. If we didn't have any ambient light, you wouldn't see any of that. So in this case it would probably be better if she had both of her arms like arm on each knee kind of thing, because that one arm you can't tell what's happening with it, but does that give you the sense for how you get the shape is somebody without getting them showing up and so if I ever do that and I want to have a much more painterly look to the end result what I'll do is use a normal flashlight incentive for because of self oil I can have the shape be not round and if I when I'm pointing the flashlight towards the camera if I twist it a little bit back and forth and side to side the length or the thickness of the light is going to change as I do that now this might be way too bright for this I'm not sure I'm assuming is going to show his vivid white I mean like blown out white but let's just see yeah put it up here but I'm going to do a very basic went yeah so um let's just say we can get in fact I'm going to try it without trying to trace him just to see if what we're getting overall I have no idea that might be way, way, way too bright and let's just see if it's an odd shape it's actually not that great so I'm gonna open up the seine if oil a little bit more you see that one spot where you see like almost a glare now that's well could have been when I started but I think it was where I mainly got the flashlight pointed more right at the camera and I actually like that more, so I'm gonna open up the senate for a little more, and I just might make it so it's more of a slot shape or something different, and I'm going to try to blind the camera more directly. Well, let's, just see if I can get something okay think it would help to have the flash later? Make sure I'm in the frame, but the reason I'm undulating in shape is often times that will make it so the size the shape in the brightness will vary. You see how it doesn't look like we'll show you what a solid flashlight would look like. In fact, you could get up if you like this one, actually lighting um so here's, just solid flashlight. You see how it's relatively consistent, and if we go back to the other one, you see how it's it's ah, let me see if I can see here well, and actually, this one is what's odd about this one. Is it's taking on the characteristics that you usually get from a three bulb flashlight, and I'm not sure why, because if I look at it it's a single balled john on the table, see if there's a flashlight that has a lot of bulbs in the handle yet we're so so here it looks like I can see three streaks of light but when I look at the flash light itself I look into it it's got one ball and that's unusual usually a single long bulb flashlight will give you a solid plein and it will be a three balled flashlight that will give you triple lines more like this yeah john's got one in his hand that's got I don't know how many evolves we should he's going accountability blind one, two, three, four, five, six, seven eight nine times two eighteen eighteen bulbs and so let's see what happens with that so john, why don't you wait and see if you can light paint yourself when you sit on the chair and which you khun dio is well first we'll practice is closed is with your left hand uh you could hold that and just like your face meaning that um but don't point it towards the camera keep it pointed towards you do that and just kind of run it near your face kind of like that without crossing in front like maybe cross below were like that and then come around the bottom a little bit like that okay tried doing that but keeping it pointed mainly towards you just to get your face and then turn it towards the camera and try doing a circle around your face like this outside of your face your arm can go right in front of your face once it's pointing towards the camera does that make sense so let's try it um you can tell me when open open okay, then spin it around make a circle around what? You want to know that? All right, let's close it let's see what it is first it might be way too right or too dark but I think he went right across his face when it was pointing towards it and that's going to be the problem. Yeah, but do you see the streak of lights there where you can see that it's a little bar of light so why don't you try it again? Try it right handed. Okay. That's fine. Yeah, and then just try it when you're going around your face point towards that came to try to avoid going three mil. Okay, open close. Like behind the back little technique there like you turn the flashlight off hiding behind you behind you. All right? The problem there was your face is blurry. So that means that when you removing the flashlight, you were thinking about it and probably watching the flashlight move around you things like that, so try to think about looking so practice once we're looking at it so you can tell what your arms doing so you know the motion and then you're gonna have to try to do that well you're kind of staring out this way makes sense all right turn turn the flash a little bit more towards you there you go and then let me know when open because it's fun close call let's take a minute to see the image but it's not more interesting with the multi bulb flashlight so the thing is he won't go figure out how to turn off that's the problem with all flashlight thinks there's almost as many modes the especially the inexpensive ones the buttons gotta do nine things you know and you wanted to do one so yeah if you want I can try it on you if you want to sit in that seat there of course it has to do that first so I'm just gonna practice by saying something like that and then I'm gonna flip around and go around okay let's see what it looks like you're ready ready now? I didn't I should've swinging it swept it around instead of just rotated around I think because then I could have kept the thickness of it now in a little too high actually need to get like closer to him or longer so let's do another one first one's always a test for me right? Yep this is a little high but you get the idea now there's some pretty wild stuff you could do with this forget john and let's see if I can get me with nine arms um john you mind doing uh okay, I'll do myself so what I like about this flashlight which is my favorite one is if I press the button of second time halfway it goes dim and that way I can use it closer up without getting too bright and so that's a nice feature of it I found another brand of flashlight I think it has it on my gear list that says I lust for it or something like that haven't talked myself into getting it it has a continuously variable level on it so you could just dialling the brightness you want what would be nice so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna like paint myself unfortunate I'm wearing black so I might not show it that much but we're going to see um if this is just to say with that things can be in motion as long as they're not being lit while they're in motion so let's try it out open so I could be completely bent over like this because the top half of me is not being lit right now right? The top half of me is not being recorded not sure if I got enough light for black in there but we'll find out and then I could like the medium part of me and then to dubai arms switch arms close and I think I moved a little bit too much, but that's, always the case in the first take, don't know if I'm gonna do a lot of this or not, but it's all so I'd know for framing is there. Our friend is not quite there, but you see how I got multiple arms and everything. So if you could get people to move, you can get all sorts of weirdness in there, and I've done it before. What I've shot dancers when they're dancing. I just haven't moved slowly in the light, different parts of them, so their body almost looks like an undulating mass. It could just be a creative look, and I think I might be able to get to one of those images quick. When we find out he was dancing around and moving in, um, like first of lettuce legs, willie was relatively still, and then I had to move around and let us face multiple times and had him lights things sometimes.
Ratings and Reviews
Julie Coder
I've been interested in light painting for awhile, so I was thrilled to see this included in Ben's bundle package, since I'm learning Lightroom as well. Really enjoyed it! I appreciate the "trial & error" approach of the class so we can see the thought practice behind the photos, not just the final images. Really helpful tips for editing as well. I love the images on his website, which gave me ideas for things to try on my own. Fun, fun, fun!
Paul
Really cool class so far. Just wanted something to get some inspiration and this is fun class but it's gonna force you to exercise. I don't work for creative live but I don't have to say that the quality of the few classes I've just started in photography is very good. I once was a professional photographer and I've taken lots of live classes and I feel the value of these is good. I am looking forward to watching the Clay Blackmore class.
Student Work
Related Classes
Lighting