Dancing with fire and painting with light

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October 6, 12:10 PM

by Ken Ilio, Chicago Photography Examiner

 

Dancing with fire, Nikon D200, f/9, 3s, Nikkor 17-35mm, at the Full Moon Jam on the lakefront 

A few weeks ago, Michael Lehet, one of my fellow Chicago Examiners wrote about the Full Moon Jam that was going to happen on the lakefront in celebration of, what else, the full moon.  Being sort of a pagan myself (but that's another story), I stopped by to see what's going on.  It was wild, just as Michael said.  From afar, I could already hear the very infectious beat of rhythmic drumming.  And the fire dancing was incredible - fire pois, twirling fire batons, even a fire eater, I think, was there too.

Which got me to thinking, this was a perfect place to shoot a technique called 'painting with light!'  I am not really familiar with it.  I have done it once because of a challenge at dpchallenge.com. 

Basically, this is a technique in which you take a picture in the dark while illuminating your subject with a light from a flashlight, making painting motions while you do so, using the flashlight as your brush.  You need to have a tripod for this to work well.  You have to set your exposure to long (a few seconds) and then use your light source to 'paint' your subject.   It goes without saying that you need to set this manually.  This works on film cameras but digital cameras will give you the best result.

Challenge of faith,  Olympus C-730UZ, f/8, 16s. painting with light entry for a challenge at dpchallenge.com back in 2004 when I was learning how to do this technique.

I don't remember much what I did for this - but I think I had my camera on the tripod and set it to a long exposure while I shone light on the rosary beads and cross as well as on the camera lens (the spikes at the bottom).

There are other variations - you can make the "painting" with your light source by shining the light on your lens, instead of on your subject.  An example this are these photos I took at the Full Moon Jam.  Although I didn't paint the scene myself, the motion of the fire poi painted circles around the twirler to make surreal photographs.

The serpent, Nikon D200,f/16 @ 6.0s, Nikkor 17-35mm, taken at the Full Moon Jam on the lakeshore in August

Double Trouble, Nikon D200, f/16, 1.6s, Nikkor 17-35mm, taken at the Full Moon Jam on the lakeshore in August

Another variation painting with light is called 'camera painting.'  In this technique, instead of moving the light source, it is the camera that is moved.  You can make wonderful patterns and abstract designs when you do this.  This is the same as the camera toss or assisted camera toss.  Of course, you don't have total control of your image, but it's fun.

Perseids, Nikon D200, f/5.6 @ 0.8s, Nikkor 17-35mm, Christmas lights with light tossing of the camera

Fisherman's Net, Nikon D200, f/5.6 @ 4.8s, Nikkor 17-35mm, Christmas lights with camera moved at different directions

Finally, I don't know if this is considered painting with light but I did an experiment where I did not move the subject nor the camera but the light came from the subject itself as in the glow -in-the-dark bowls below:

Bowls, Nikon D70, f/5.6, 2s, Nikkor 18-70mm

For this technique, I basically emptied the contents of glow in the dark sticks into the bowls, arranged them on a black cloth on the floor of my bathroom ...er, studio ... closed the door, turned off the light and took the picture with the camera on a tripod.

Enjoy!

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