Light Painting 101

People gravitate to photography for a wide range of reasons—for some it’s primarily a vehicle for artistic expression, while others are drawn to photography as a science and are engrossed by its technical aspects. One increasingly popular photographic discipline that requires a careful mix of both artistic inspiration and scientific precision is night and low-light photography. While this was once a tenuous undertaking with little guarantee of predictable results, the powerful sensors, advanced low-light capabilities, and immediate feedback of current generation DSLRs have made this area of practice more fun and gratifying than ever before. One particular technique in this realm that holds a cult-like status among initiates is Light Painting.

Photo above © Matt Hill

What is Light Painting?

As a general practice, light painting (or light drawing) can be defined as a long exposure technique whereby an image is captured while adding detail or interest to a scene using a handheld light source, either to illuminate an object or a part of the image from outside the frame, or to move a light around in front of the camera. Light painting can also describe the process where the camera itself (or the lens), rather than lights, is moved during exposure.

Two notable pioneers of light painting were French scientist, photographer, and cinematographer Étienne-Jules Marey and American efficiency expert Frank Gilbreth, both of whom attached small lights to human subjects to record otherwise hard-to-perceive movements over time. As these experiments prove, light painting is by no means limited to a nocturnal setting; however, it’s generally most successful when practiced in an environment with limited light and lots of shadow area. Similar to the Sgraffito drawings of childhood, which reveal colorful lines and shapes when scratching through a black surface, at its most basic, light painting can be described as involving relationships between light and dark; figure and ground.

Optimal Conditions for Light Painting

To test the waters of light painting, find a setting with enough room and sufficient variety to inspire you to play around with the various accessories in your tool kit (more on that below). You’ll need a camera capable of making long exposures, ideally something with manual shutter/aperture controls and a bulb setting. A sturdy tripod and remote shutter release are the other prerequisites for getting the most from a light-painting session.

If you’ve come to a location with other photographers, allow sufficient space and direct your work so that your lights don’t bleed into other people’s pictures, or vice versa. Another option in a group setting is to join forces and make your light painting experiments a combined effort. Spend a few minutes in discussion and come up with a collaborative plan to light and photograph a central object from multiple vantage points.

Light-Painting Tools

Tools for contemporary light painting range from the most basic, easily accessible lighting accessories to the latest in high tech. To break things down, it can be helpful to categorize the tools by the effects they produce.

Point light sources such as pocket flashlights, penlights, laser pointers, fiber optic lighting and the like can be used to draw with light inside the image area. If you are facing the camera when writing, keep in mind that any text or numbers will appear backwards in the resulting photograph.

Flat or shaped lighting surfaces such as iPhones or iPads, larger handheld flashlights, spotlights, or lanterns; strobes; LED lighting; accessories such as glow sticks, mirrors or reflective devices can be used for broader mark making or blocks of light inside an image, as well as for adding light in an image from outside the frame.

Combustible lighting sources such as sparklers, emergency flares, Tiki torches, Poi balls, light painting orbs (a metal container filled with steel wool) can add both light and excitement to your images, but one should exercise caution in not working with these items in fire-prone locations. A sandy beach, rocky precipice or snow-laden landscape can make safe—and very dramatic—settings for working with such tools.

Camera-generated light sources, which occur when camera movement or lens zooming is aimed toward existing light sources in a scene. Using the camera movement as a light-painting tool often emphasizes fluid abstraction

Specialty lighting sources created by photographers, such as the Hosemaster, a patented light-painting device from the 1990s that utilizes a fiber optic light source; LED lights such as Lowel’s GL-1 light, Westcott’s Ice Light 2, and most recently, LED light painting wands such as Fotorgear’s Magilight, which uses RGB LEDs in an aluminum housing for lighting effects emphasizing vibrant color and dynamic movement.

Other essential accessories for light painting include a sturdy tripod to keep the camera in place while you are busy lighting the scene and an intervalometer or camera remote to hold the shutter open during long exposures (as mentioned above). A set of colored gels can also be useful to apply color to your lighting. When gelling your light source, keep in mind that this cuts down on the strength of the light and will require a longer exposure time. Lastly, make sure to bring plenty of fully charged batteries (both for your lighting devices and your camera) to fuel your efforts throughout your shoot.

Light is a Many-Colored Thing

While many people consider light to be the absence of color, those with a solid photography background understand that any given light source has an inherent color temperature, measured in degrees Kelvin. It’s therefore very helpful to know the color temperature of the lighting devices you work with, as well as the ambient light sources in the image or on the periphery, so that you can anticipate the potential for color casts in your pictures in advance. While nailing the color temperature with a color meter is both highly impractical and cost prohibitive for most people, it’s helpful to know that color casts range from warm red/orange to cool blues as you go up the Kelvin scale from 1500K (candlelight) to 3200K (interior lighting) to 5500K (daylight) to 10000 + (a clear blue sky or shade).

One important tenet of light painting is to move away from your camera when adding light. Shining a light straight into a scene from directly beside or behind your camera will result in a flat, harsh lighting effect (think deer in the headlights). For optimal lighting, aim your light at 90-degree angles to the camera lens, from a safe distance outside the frame (similar to a standard studio lighting setup). If you want to emphasize a more sculptural effect, consider using a high or low vantage point with your lights, which will cast subtle shadows behind surfaces such as leaves or blades of grass.

Keep in mind that the closer your lights are to the foreground in an image, the quicker they will render brightness in the picture. Inversely, you’ll need to spend much more time adding light to objects that are at a distance from the camera for a lighting effect to show up.

Another factor to consider is that light painting will have a more pronounced effect when applied to shadow areas and darker surfaces than to objects that are lighter in tonality or image highlights. As an example, picture a scene with a window on the side of a house. Applying light to a darkened window will bring out sculptural detail in the mullions and reflections in the window glass, whereas, if the window is lit from inside and already a highlight in the scene, light painting this area will have little visible effect (although it could cause the area to become overexposed if lit for an extended period).

With reflective surfaces, you may want to add light from directly behind or beside your camera, for maximum effect. While this can apply to all reflective surfaces—from glass to bodies of water—it can be especially rewarding when including objects in a scene such as reflective signage, road surface markings, or other objects with a reflective finish.

Stepping into the Frame

So far, this discussion has been focused on adding light to a scene from outside the image. If you plan to paint with light from within the frame, there are a few additional points to consider. First, it’s advisable to dress in black or dark clothing and to keep moving within the frame to limit the chances of you showing up in the image—unless you’re seeking this effect, which is known as “ghosting.” Once you open the camera’s shutter, it’s equally important to keep your light source moving to avoid uneven lighting, creating a hot spot or burning out a section of the image.

As mentioned earlier, if you’re painting with light when facing the camera, you’ll need to be aware that written text or numbers will appear backwards in the resulting photograph. While one easy solution to this would be to flip the image file in post, photography purists may prefer to master the art of writing backwards in the image itself. In this case, it can be helpful to write your message out on a piece of paper in advance for use as a visual guide on site.

Some of the most exciting visual effects of light painting can be created by light emanating from behind an object in the frame, such as the silhouetting of a darkened figure or light rays radiating from a mysterious source. The easiest way to create a silhouette is to stand behind a stationary figure (or object) and run a small pen light or light stick (white, colored or even both) along its edge, steadily tracing a line of light.

Radiating light rays are best created by aiming a strobe from behind an object at an oblique angle towards the camera and giving it a few pops. Another option would be to stand out of view of the camera and bounce the flash off another object in the scene. Or, use your body as a flag to hide the source of the light, while emphasizing the magic of its effects. These suggestions can be particularly effective when the atmosphere is heavy with humidity, mist, or fog.

With these guidelines in mind, you can set out with a basic roadmap for directed exploration of this complex and visually rich technique. In the process, keep in mind that all rules and every suggestion can be easily broken with creative intent.

To view more work from the photographers who contributed to this article, click on any name.

Gabriel Biderman/National Parks at Night

Vicki DaSilva

Steve Harper

Matt Hill/National Parks at Night

Lance Keimig/National Parks at Night

Troy Paiva

Jill Waterman

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