A few months ago I enjoyed a day with Dave Black, a veteran sports photographer, as he gave a small seminar on lighting techniques. Dave is quite an amazing photographer, not only for the breadth of his sports coverage, but also for his expertise in lighting spaces that you might think could not be done by a single photographer and a few (ok, quite a few) Speedlights. One part of the session that I didn’t expect to find very interesting was about light painting. But in fact that turned out to be the most interesting part of the day.
In a nutshell, the technique involves exposing for a dark foreground and then shining light on the subject with some sort of lamp, flashlight, etc. I’ve been playing around with this a bit at Lake Tahoe, and the above image was made on a cool, clear night when the Milky Way was nicely visible in the sky. I set up for a 30 second exposure to make the stars look as they do, which normally would result in the tree being nearly black. Then, with one of the flashlights I found at the cabin, I started shining it on the tree through my speedlight’s warm gel as the light was quite cool. The beam was too narrow, I think, to get the coverage as even as I’d like, but still I was impressed with this first attempt to paint with light. I think some better light sources would make a big difference. And as ever, experience will be the biggest factor.
To see the work of someone who knows what he’s doing, look here. Dave has managed to light some amazing subjects! And if you ever get the chance to met and or learn from him, grab it!
