Cheap Creative Night Photography

Do you pack up your camera at night? Do you fall into a Youtube trance when the sun goes down? Night Photography is one of the most rewarding and exciting of the creative image arts. Got a flashlight nearby?.. a LED?  Then get outside and start experimenting…

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What you’ll need…

Tripod

Nikon dSLR (I’m sure a Canon would do…

A “Torch” this could be a flashlight or a sparkle, a LED, any kind of bright and exact light source

A “LightPainter” (or go it yourself)

A slow shutter speed (BULB it)

Imagination and a idea of your frame boundaries

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Here are a few examples of what we’ve pulled off at night..

“Light Battle of sorts”

“Photography is like Jazz?” (for this one I moved the camera around the subject, a street light)

“Another Day surrounded by Light”

“A Bright Self Portrait” (sparklers produce stunning effects)

“Several Seans” (the external flash did all the work on this one)

For me Light Painting is all about fun, and creativity. Depress the shutter, run around with the “torch”, and finally …bask in the result of your insanity.
Browse through Flickr and you will come upon amazing uses of this fun technique (Try this Group.. super stuff)

Jamie Kivisto (www.jamiekivisto.com) appears as one of the artists in this Sprint commercial with flashlight (lightpainting) animation.

For a more exact look at the technique check out LightDoodles.com

Also check the creations collected on Abduzeedo.com