From an experiment in a shoot with Cat Hedlund early in 2013. In this shoot I used both a white and red color light sources and light painted her. The white on her body and using the red light to accent her red hair. My favorite shot from trying to mix the colors. It’s an idea I’ve just not found a real use for since though.
The third shoot of my experiment with working with multiple models at the same location came with Viktoria, a professional trained ballet dancer. This shoot contained an interesting shift taking place only a few days after the shoot with Bree in the same location. I mentioned that I’d driven home from the shoot with Bree in a pretty good rain, but in fact it rained much of the time between the two shoots. In fact Viktoria and I changed plans the morning of the shoot planning to shoot inside because of the threat of weather. Thankfully the forecast improved at the last minute and we were able to go back to our original plan of shooting in this location.
Part of my desire to upgrade cameras late last year came for shoots like this. We were meeting late and in cloudy weather to shoot in deep woods. There’s little chance my previous camera could have handled the ISO needed here and not introduced too much noise. The rain also meant that any attempt to shoot in the falls would be out of the question. The water flow was too high to put anyone into so we focused on the landscape around the falls.
While Viktoria couldn’t get into the falls, it still worked as a nice set to pose her against.
We also did some light painting work late in the shoot in that meadow I mentioned.
Viktoria also posted a few photos from the shoot on her Tumblr.
A few light painting shots from a shoot earlier this year with Cat Hedlund.
During the summer days I love working in the mountains. If you’ve not experienced it, it can be hard to believe the difference a couple thousand of feet in elevation can make. The downside of that can be when shooting late or at night you can get into some cool temperatures even in the summer months, especially for the model standing around nude. But during these summer days I took advantage of the warmth and a nice isolated area I’d discovered to try my hand at some outdoor light painting. I’d started with light painting earlier this year in a couple shoots. Here I wanted to take the concept outdoors and see what I could work out. Both shoots were interesting that they had some complications and were not smooth coordinating schedules, but both worked nicely and I’m happy with the results.
First with Keira and I already shared photos from the daytime part of that shoot. Afterward we waited out the late mid-summer sunset and tried some light painting. A few nice results below:
Also had a similar experience with Angela. She and I had tried to work out a time that worked for both of us when suddenly we were able to work out a time to collaborate. I met her in Asheville and we again headed up into the mountains. The weather threatened enough that we at shifted our location to be neared the car in case the lightning that flashed around us turned into an actual storm, which it never did. I was happy with the work and felt a little better control and understanding of what I was doing this time. The shift had a nice benefit in that it located a wonderful bank I was able to pose her against including the photos below.
Sometimes photo plans don’t work out. I’d planned this shoot with Melissa to be outdoors on a nice late summer afternoon. In the mountains though late summer brings the threat of storms and we prepared to go shoot, the weather to the west was quite ominous. A quick check of the radar on my phone showed several lines of rain and storms coming in toward town. So we went to a plan B, shooting some light painting indoors.
I like the first one here as part of a set we did. The idea is a mix of a couple of ideas, but the strongest is probably the horror movie cliché of the old asylum. The sepia toning I think adds to the older feel of looking at something from the past. The story here is one of questions. The slight out of focus to give it a feel of being a little off normal. Is she someone trapped and trying to get out to the viewer for escape or is she trying to get out to ensnare the viewer? Is the hand restraining her trying to keep her in to protect the viewer, or keep her from being helped by the viewer? Melissa nailed the expression perfectly here, a mix of desperation, fear, and hope.
Some others around the same theme, but more directly something menacing than the first photo. Here there’s no doubt of the intent and I think the starkness of the lighting highlights that. Love her expression in the first of these too. It really conveys the the emotion wonderfully.
I can’t say for sure where I first got the interest in light painting other than I got the idea while out west. My best guess of the inspiration came while watching the light play as the sun set while shooting with Jen near Phoenix. I’d seen and read about light painting before of course, but I don’t remember ever feeling a strong desire to try it before then. I do remember on my drive north out of Phoenix thinking about looking into the concept some more. I set up the first shoot that I’d planned to try light painting while in Las Vegas, but that shoot ended up falling through. The first time I brought a model to try light painting came in mid July with Kelsey Dylan.
If you’ve not come across light painting before, it’s photography with artificial light, but not the traditional strobe or flash. Instead of a short bright light, light painting works by putting a subject in a dark room, using a slow shutter speed, and moving a light source to light the subject. It allows effects that are difficult or impossible with normal flash. It’s not easy though. The long exposure times tax the ability of even the best model to remain motionless. A lot of trial and error is involved. Even now with several more shoots behind me I still find that I make more mistakes than I get right. I’m enjoying the work though and you’ll see more coming in the near future.
It was my first time working with Kelsey and she was great. She was also very patient as I tried and experimented through this. The photos aren’t perfect, but I did get a few that came out pretty well. These are probably the two that worked best. More to come.
