Light Painting and Colored Gels

With an inexpensive swatch book of theater lighting gels, some night tlight bulbs, and a couple of LED flashlights, you can create the real color effects. And the best part is that you don't need Photoshop or even a computer.

Yes, you can manipulate photos in just about every way imaginable in Photoshop. But what if you don't like Photoshop, don't feel that comfortable with your image-editing skills, or just want to try something new? Alternatively, you can manipulate the picture as you actually capture it with the camera. Working with light painting and colored gels,is a great way to experiment with this type of creative shooting.

Crystal with colored gel

I use quartz crystals for my example because they're fun to manipulate with light, but just about any translucent or reflective subject has potential. My tools include theater lighting gels, nightlights, a photographer's light box, colored bulbs, and LED flashlights. One of my favorite combinations for experimentation is a regular nightlight bulb shining through Roscolux theater gels. For US$3.50 at Rose's Theatrical Supply, you can get a Roscolux Swatch Book that contains a sample of every gel in their collection.

 

For the crystal shots, I made a custom light stand out of a six-inch length of 2" 4" wood. I simply drilled two holes? one downward from the top and one inward from the side? to form an L-shaped opening in the wood. The crystal sits on the top hole, and the nightlight bulb goes in the side hole. Now, I can put any color gel I want over the top hole, and that will be the color of light projected up through the crystal.

 

When you use this setup in a darkened room, the colored light shining up through the crystal is subtle and quite striking. If you want, while the shutter is open, you can add more effects, such as light painting. This is why nightlight bulbs, which are typically only four watts or so, are good for this type of project. The dim light creates long exposures that give you the opportunity to paint with other lights, such as flashlights with colored bulbs, while the shutter is open.

Many of the new LED pocket lights that are available for US$10 or less have options for red, green, blue, and white bulbs. You can shop around at flashlight specialty shops, to discover a whole new universe of creative lighting options. And when you're not painting with them, they make great additions to your keychain.

 

The Set up:

Find a work area where you can control the ambient lighting. Set up your prop lighting (such as the light stand I discussed earlier), colored gels, and subject. Mount your camera on a sturdy tripod. You can use Auto Exposure mode, but check you camera manual for how long the shutter will stay open with that setting. Some cameras have a Long Exposure mode; if yours does, you should use it.

 

Most advanced cameras have Shutter Priority mode, which makes this work easier. You can set the shutter speed to three or four seconds, and the camera will handle the aperture settings for you. As you work, you'll have to lengthen the shutter exposure (such as 6, 8, or 10 seconds) to lighten the picture, or shorten the exposure (2 seconds or less) to darken it. Play with your settings until you get the effect you want.

 

I like to use a remote release to trip the shutter, but if you don't have a remote, you can also use the self-timer. The main thing is that you don't want to jar the camera when you initiate the exposure. Even the slightest vibration during exposure will degrade your image. Speaking of picture quality, set the ISO on its lowest rating: 50 or 100. This ISO will produce nice, long exposures under these dim lighting conditions, giving you more time to play while the shutter is open.

 

Now, dim the room lights and let your imagination run wild. Take the colored bulbs or flashlights and move them around in the scene while the shutter is open. You'll find that different speeds and angles create different types of brush strokes.

 

Source: O’Reiley | Online Portfolio Website | Photography Website Design

 

Auto Headlamps and Other Streaming Lights

You can energize your night shots by including streaming lights, such as cars passing through your composition. Just make sure you're not standing in the flow of traffic at the time.

The flow of traffic provides a great opportunity to add motion to your compositions. Automobiles are light-painting machines, and it's easy to put them to work for you. The key to success is to find a location with ambient light? such as a well-lit street, a bridge, or a large building? to serve as your main composition. Yes, you can go stand out on a dark highway and photograph cars as they whiz by, but images of streaming lights against a pitch-black backdrop aren't really worth the danger of being there in the first place.

Think of streaming lights as an element that you add to an already interesting composition, not the sole subject of the picture itself. If you were shooting a quiet little neighborhood, you probably wouldn't add this element to the shot; you're trying to convey solitude, comfort, and a feeling of being off the beaten track. But if you wanted to show the hustle and bustle of rush-hour traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge or in Manhattan, including lots of streaming lights adds a sense of energy and activity. Featuring the Empire State Building rising above the activity on the street. By including streaming car lights as they drive by, you get a feel for the energy of New York City.

 

 

 

Your Equipment

The first thing you need to do is find your tripod. This type of photography requires exposures that are too long for even the steadiest of hands. If you don't want to lug around your big three-legged beast, buy a handy pocket tripod that you can set on top of newspaper boxes and ledges.

If your camera accepts a remote release, use it. Not only do you need it to trip the shutter without jarring the camera, but you also want to start the exposure just as cars are driving by. You can also use the self-timer, but you won't have nearly as much control over when the exposure begins.

 

Source: O'Reiley |  Online Portfolio Website |  Photography Portfolio

Analyze Metadata to Improve Your Photography Shots

In the days of film cameras, I seldom recorded exposure settings that would have helped me better analyze my pictures. Now, digital cameras handle all that work for me, and I can use that information to figure out what went right or what went wrong.

 

Every time you click the shutter, your digital camera records valuable picture data that describes the image you just captured. Data such as time, shutter speed, aperture, focal length, and ISO are written to the file header in the Exchangeable Image File (EXIF) format. This information becomes part of the total image file and can be displayed with applications such as Photoshop.

 

In essence, each picture file contains a complete photographic history of the decisive moment, which can be analyzed to help you understand why the image was successful or give you clues as to what went wrong. In this hack, I'll show you how to retrieve this data and use it to perfect your photography portfolio skills.

 

What Is EXIF?

The EXIF format is an international specification, first established in 1995, that enables digital cameras (and other imaging devices) to write data to the file header of the image. EXIF files use the JPEG DCT format specified in ISO/IEC 10918-1. The picture portion of the file can be read by any application supporting JPEG, including web browsers and image editors. The metadata can be accessed by applications designed to extract that information out of the header and display it. The most common imaging applications have no problem displaying at least some of the EXIF data.

 

However, the picture file usually contains more information than what's typically displayed by a given application, unless that application is designed specifically to output EXIF information. For example, iPhoto on the Mac provides the basic time, date, file size, and camera information when you click on the Photo tab of the Show Info window. If you click on the Exposure tab, you get more data, such as shutter speed, aperture, focal length, exposure compensation, metering pattern, and flash status.

 

But iPhoto doesn't provide you with other data sitting there in the file header, such as whit balance. If you need that information, you have to open the file with another application designed to grab that data. The point is that the EXIF specification dictates what goes in to the picture file, but image editors typically give you only a portion of that information. So, if you get serious about reading this stuff, you might need to add a couple tools to your imaging bag of tricks.

 

Why Would I Want to Read EXIF Data?

When you take pictures, some turn out better than others. Why is that? Beyond good composition and subject matter, there are many factors that contribute to powerful images. These include time of day, depth of field, proper shutter speed, and exposure compensation as needed.

 

If you look at a picture of running water, for example, and you like the way it's rendered, wouldn't it be nice to know the settings that you used, so you could duplicate the effect? Before digital cameras were available, I would take handwritten notes to help me remember the settings for particular shots. I hated that! Now, the camera records all that information for me, and I'm free to concentrate on taking good pictures.

 

I know that I can control the way water appears by adjusting the shutter speed. The 1/250-of-a-second exposure "stopped the action" to some degree and the 1-second exposure created a soft look. Now, the next time I shoot running water, I can capture the exact effect I want by adjusting the shutter speed.

 

Source: O’Reiley | Website for Photographers |   Portfolio website for students