I'm always excited to learn about new photography techniques. I'm always exceptionally excited to learn about photography techniques that are wholly impractical.
Light painting is a process that involves throwing your environment into pitch-darkness, taking many long-exposures, and wiggling a flashlight (or other handheld light source) around until something looks good.
fig. 1: contact sheet with multiple long-exposures
fig. 2: final image titled "Vermeer", comprised of multiple shots composited together
Light-painting is an older photography technique—one that has been largely replaced as new, more accurate and convenient technology has emerged. Nowadays, you'll likely only see light-painting in use as a fine art technique, or in process art.
With the above shots (and most of the shots below this paragraph), I worked with 60-second exposures in total darkness. Using a small, dying flashlight, I traced the outline of the subject, spending more time in spots where I wanted more clarity and highlights, and less time in spots that weren't important to the image.
fig. 1: fine things
fig. 2: pumpkin
fig. 3: wedding flowers
I quickly learned that larger still life compositions or compositions containing many small components would be the cause of much suffering. Figure 3 above, wedding flowers, was nearly impossible to photograph without leaving many light trails in the background of the image. The glass was a complete nightmare, and no amount of the clone stamp tool in Photoshop could save me.
Figure 1, fine things, required multiple shots to get the exposure levels right on the most reflective bits of the scissors. Spending more than a few seconds on the blades with my flashlight would completely blow out the highlights, and managing light spillover became its own task.
Figure 2, pumpkin, posed no issues (it is just a pumpkin, after all).
early struggles with overexposure
while I managed to avoid light trails in the background, they were impossible to prevent from reflecting off the glass
But if there's really anything to be said for light painting, it's that the atmosphere created with each exposure can't be oversold. Could you achieve the same thing with multiple studio strobes or constant lighting? Maybe, but I'm not entirely sure. There's a quality to the lighting that feels more dynamic than studio lights, and I don't think it'd be easy to measure that out with strobe settings and positioning.
