First, I’m glad to have made such an impression on so many of you, and I’m super glad to finally be in the 6 score club. I’m proud of this shot, but I’m certainly not the first person to do this.
I had seen this technique shown in several photo technique books. Some call it light painting. (By the way, “The Photographer’s Handbook” by John Hedgecoe is the best one-stop-shop for photography I’ve seen.)
There were a couple of DPCers who caught my eye using this technique. Notably,
nico_blue  (I love this shot.)
A similar effect was achieved on July 4th by every photo of a kid with a sparkler.
First, I found a light I could use. I tried my home flashlightâ€Â¦
But that didn’t work too wellâ€Â¦
I was going to go to buy a small pinpoint light from Wal-Mart, but I realized that I could take my spare strobe light, tape some cardboard over it with a small hole and turned on the model light. (If you do this, make sure you don’t start a fire. That light gets hot.) This would be my home-made light-wand.
That seemed to workâ€Â¦
Aside for the strobes, the room was dim so nothing else would show up in the photo that wasn’t brighter than the strobes’ reflection off of me. I used a soft-box and a couple of strobes to light the shot. As you can see by the shadows, I could have planned that better.
The camera shutter was set to stay open for 4 seconds. So, the shutter opened, the strobes went off capturing me in a silly pose staring up at the ceiling. After the strobes went off I had 3 seconds to grab my light-wand, position it, turn the model light on, move it in a circle, and turn it off before the shutters closed.
The light was hard to keep steady and move in a good circle. I used the strobe’s stand to pivot. That helped.
Once I knew it could work, the rest was trial and errorâ€Â¦
After a hundered shots or so, I figured I had enough good shots and processed theseâ€Â¦
I chose to submit thisâ€Â¦
I knew there were some problems with this shotâ€Â¦
1) My shirt was wrinkled. I couldn’t in all honesty go for the pristine angel look. I’m partial to the humanized angels of DOGMA.
2) My eyes are dark. Although I had plenty of lighting, I decided to keep dark eyes. They appealed to me and I think they complemented the smirk.
3) I didn’t like the shadow on my neck cast by my shirt. It is there because I was too lazy to go back and reshoot.
4) There is a black spot on my left collar, but that was my best wrinkled, white, collared shirt.
5) My paper background over my right shoulder has a wrinkle in it, but I didn’t notice until post-processing. I should have put a strobe on it.
6) The mirror in my camera needs to be cleaned to remove dust. It is shameful that I still haven’t cleaned it.
Feel free to ask or comment more if I didn’t explain. I know there are lots of people here who can answer them if I don’t get back to you.
Thanks again for your comments and votes. It is late here, and I’ve got to go to bed.
Brian.
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