You may have seen an earlier post on Light Photography and thought, “Wow, I can’t do that…” I have always been stunned by light photography photos and have been wanting to try it out for a long time. Finally, I enjoyed one of the last warm autumn nights and learned how. Two friends and I spent a night running around in the dark with cellphones and flashlights, hoping we wouldn’t wake the neighbours. So what is light photography? It’s a photographic technique where long exposures in dark areas capture the pathways of light in a beautiful and fascinating way.
If you’d like to know how to do this, here are some great online tutorials:
Long Exposure Basics
Drawing in the Dark
How to Shoot Light Trails
But, to get you started, you’re going to need a camera, a tripod, a flashlight or a bright cellphone and a dark night. The camera doesn’t have to be expensive, but it helps. It does have to have adjustable shutter speed settings, but “Fireworks” and “City Night Time Landscape” etc. settings can work as well if you play around with it. It’s also helpful if your camera has a self-timer setting, so you can run into the picture before it’s taken. However, if there isn’t a self-timer setting, you can always do it with friends.
My creative tip: If you have an iPhone, iPod touch, or an Android phone, download a flashlight app. Most flashlight apps have cool setting like “Rainbow” or strobe that can be used to get effects like this:
Light Photography has created a trend of “Light Graffiti” in which any landscape can be “graffitied” in an unpermanent and very beautiful way. If you’ve already tried it an are look for inspiration, here are some creative examples of “light graffiti” to get you thinking:
20 Beautiful Examples of Light Graffiti
Awesome Light Graffiti Pictures
Breathtaking Examples of Long Exposure Photography
LED, Light, and Laser Photography
