There are so many ways to actually use light for you photographs.
You don’t just need to set up still external lighting, and you aren’t just limited to taking photographs outside in the daylight. For this shoot that I did, all of the photographs were taken outside with a long exposure.
First, I should explain what a long exposure is. That way you can come up with your own ideas on what to do! Typically, your camera shutter (the thing that you push to take the picture) is only open for a fraction of a second: 1/200, or 1/40 of a second. But, you can actually keep your shutter open for actual full seconds, and that is where long exposure comes in. It’s much easier to take long exposure photographs at night. That way you don’t have any extraneous light–like the sun–coming in and ruining your photograph by blowing it out. Just using a flashlight or the light that you have on your phone can help you get pictures like this!
This first one is probably my favorite. This is actually a blend of three different images, and I altered the colors of the light in post. In order to take this photographs, I had the shutter open for about three seconds so my friend could spin the light for me to get that awesome caged orb effect. I need to make my own of these light bad boys, because it was a lot of fun to get a photograph looking like this.
This is my first attempt at taking a photograph of the night sky and I’m quite happy with it! My shutter speed was at about 25 seconds with my ISO pumped up all the way. We used a flashlight to illuminate the arch, but it was only lit up for about 3 seconds so we didn’t over expose the image. Be sure to have your focus set to infinity so you can get those stars extra sharp.
This final photograph had an exposure set to about 15 seconds. I had to sprint up a snowy hill while the shutter was open, and then I ran all around the porch with a flashlight to make sure that it was all properly lit. I’d definitely want to go out again and use this technique!
You should go and look at Dave Black’s light painting because he is amazing and never edits his photos out of camera. He is that good.
So go out and try to take photographs like this!
Happy Photographing!
