Video by Robert Grant, Article by SASHA GiTiN
Watch this photography tutorial video to learn light painting technique.

Creating a great photograph does not often require expensive photographic equipment.  Light painting can be done using a basic household  flashlight.  Previously, we discussed using sparklers during a long exposure. A creative technique that explains how to combine camera flash and sparklers. Now we would like to introduce a different side of this technique and demonstrate how you can use a flashlight as the only light source.

Light Painting:

Light painting technique will help have a better understanding of one of the essential concepts of photography: Time.

Time in photography is controlled by the shutter speed setting on your camera.

Shutter speed:

Shutter speeds sets how long time the light (image reflected) will be entering the lens and projecting onto the sensor.  While the shutter is open you can use any light source and project it onto your subject.

Lighting as Airbrushing:

Think of a flashlight as an airbrush. If you point and hold an airbrush in one spot, it will produce a blotch of color in one area. But if you would move it evenly over the surface it will produce the most even and consistent spread of paint. That’s why this technique is called “light painting” you almost literally paint with the light. Light painting will give you similar control of the light as an airbrush would give you to control the paint.

Dark Set:

To avoid ambient light from registering  in your shot a totally dark room is required  You might want to consider photographing at night or blocking all the light around your set with black cloth or black foam boards, as Robert did in the video above.

What shutter speed is best?

Whatever time setting will give you enough time to light paint your subject is the one.  You might need 5 seconds, 10 seconds or 30 seconds. Most DSLR cameras have a maximum shutter speed setting of 30 seconds. If your image requires more time to complete you might consider setting your camera to BULB.

Bulb setting:

Bulb (“B” setting on camera dial) allows your camera to keep the shutter open endlessly.  When the shutter release button is pressed, the shutter opens and remains open until the shutter release button is pressed again. So push the button and begin painting with light and when you feel that you are all done push the shutter release again.

Creative ways to use light painting:

Beer Glow:

In this image I used light painting technique to light the beer from the back to show the glow.  I used light painting as well to light the label on the bottle. The reason light painting was the best solution in this situation is because for me in order to light the label with with a strobe would require positioning the light in front of the bottle and as a result the light source itself would get reflected in the glass. To show the glow painting with a flashlight was very effective as it gave me total control to achieve desired results. This whole shot was done in the following manner:

• I Set the camera to Bulb and pressed the shutter release button.
  
• Using a flashlight, I painted the light to create the glow (just by running a small flashlight up and down, projecting it onto the bottle and glass, from the back).
• Then I light-painted the label.
  
• Then I popped the strobe (two strobe heads with 20 degree grids) positioned one on each side behind the subject) and dropped the lemon simultaneously. It took about 30 takes... to get desired result.
  

More ideas:

Evan the PhotoExtremist (our frequent guest contributor) recently demonstrated a light painting technique to create a pretty cool image of  Psychedelic Droplets CD:

Conclusion:

Digital photography took away some of the magic that used to happened in the darkroom (what's a darkroom? During the dark ages of photography, about 10 years ago, you had to: take a photo, then wait untill you were done with the roll, develop the roll of  film, then spend hours in the darkroom printing images, and did I mention measuring and mixing chemicals?... it was awesome and now long forgotten. Nevertheless,this good old technique of light paintings brings some of this magic back into our digital time.

Give this technique a try and post your results and comments. What is your approach to light painting?

Related Tutorials:

Long Exposures with Sparklers
Unconventional Photography Techniques