For this weeks blog I wanted to share another one of my favorite photography pastimes, light painting. When I first heard of light painting photography it was using a flashlight to light up an object while taking a long exposure and I thought that it was very cool but then I met my friend Johnny and he showed me a whole new world of light painting photography.
I met Johnny at a gallery during First Friday here in Raleigh. I saw his images hanging on the wall and was just blown away. He had such detail in all of his images and i asked him to show me how to create the images that he was doing and he agreed.
The meeting space was a bike tunnel that had no lights inside so at night it was pitch black. I set up my tripod and turned it on bulb mode and watched him work. The first images he showed me was spinning steel wool orbs. Of course anything that involves fire I like.
At this point you could say I was hooked. He then pulled out his homemade light wand that you can program an image into and then fire it and it will paint line by line an image as you walk in front of the camera. This takes a lot of practice to get your pace right and a steady hand to get a nice smooth image.
Now it was time to start getting more intricate. Using another pattern and some more of his toys that emit light I stood in as a model while he made another image. Now I have to stay standing still for up to 10 minutes at a time to get these images is not easy but it was worth it.
I heard of a tool called the pixelstick that was like Johnny's but with more LED's and can be programable with any image that you can think of. Of course now that I was hooked on it I just had to buy one for myself. When it arrived I was like a little kid at Christmas. I called Johnny and said let's go play. Johnny sent me some images to load onto it and I was blown away by the detail that produces.
Well now you can see why I am so addicted to this type of photography. When most people put the camera away at night we are just getting started. I want to give a big huge shoutout to Johnny for showing me how to create these images. Please go check out his site for more amazing images http://www.jedii.com/ Until next week.