Light graffiti (also often known as light painting or light drawing) is a fantastic and creative way to express your artistic side, ‘draw’ silly shapes, or doing something you can enjoy with your mates. It needs to be dark when you do this, but essentially it can be done anywhere; at home, in the garden, or out in the wilds. The principles of light graffiti are not that far removed from waving a sparkler around on bonfire night to make swirling shapes; the only difference is that you are capturing the pattern or light trail on camera. You have complete control of the light source (try and think of torches like brushes with an endless supply of paint coming from them.)

There are some basic things you need to get you started:

• A camera (ideally a digital SLR) capable of taking long exposures
• A tripod
• At least one standard torch
• A dark space to create your masterpiece

Mount the camera on a tripod, then using the control dial, switch it to manual mode. Shutter speed can be set to 15-30 seconds, or if you have a remote cable release, switch the camera to Bulb mode which will allow you to take exposures lasting a lot longer. For the aperture setting, anything between f8-f11 is a good start. Choose ISO between 100-200.

Next step is to ensure your images are not blurry. One way to do this is to take the lens off auto setting and manually turn the focus ring, taking a few test shots as you go, or ask someone to hold a light source in frame and auto focus off the bright spot.

When you’re ready, hit the shutter button or cable release, step into frame, turn on the torch and start creating! If you do not have a cable release or you’re doing this on your own, you may wish to use the camera’s timer control, allowing you that extra few seconds to step into frame before you hear the ‘click’ as the camera starts exposing.

When you’ve finished painting with your torch, turn it off, return to the camera and finish the exposure.

Here are some basic examples to get you in the mood:

Once you’ve got the hang of it, take things a lot further by using different torches and try your hand at more elaborate shapes, There are no limits, so push your imagination. Most of all have fun!

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This is the problem I have with one of the masters of photography, Ansel Adams.  Whilst there is no doubting his expertise and technical prowess, I feel that such things actually hinder his images. In my early days of discovering photography, I held his work in high esteem; the skill was something to aspire to, however, as I learnt more my interest in his photographs waned. Why did this happen? Well, I began to see a sterility in his work, Adams’s assertion that: “We can have craft without art, but we cannot have art without craft” was a double edged sword. His rigorous application of his craft actually becomes a barrier to interacting with the photographs he produced. When viewing his images all you can hear is his voice and expression. The technique overpowers and sublimates the narrative in the image; you end up looking at the technique, not the subject. To me, this makes his work like propaganda, there is no debate/dialogue with his work, you either agree with it or you don’t. I’m not saying that something has to be flawed to have a narrative, it can help yes, but the content of the image should be the main point of focus (sorry) not the technique you use. As I’m forever telling clients at work when they are asking us to create a ‘successful website’, “Content is king”. Without it, you can have the most well designed, thought out site, but if there’s nothing there for the user to engage with, well you might as well not bother. When you can marry technique and content you get some wonderful work such as that of Jack Spencer.

This engagement with the viewer is something that TV companies have recognised, the draw that reality TV shows have. Despite the lack of polish and to some extent content, there is a narrative there that draws in the viewer, inviting the viewer to be part of the story itself.

This engagement with the viewer got me to thinking about portraits. Taking for example the Taylor-Wessing portrait prize (was Schweppes portrait prize), every year a common theme amongst the shots chosen, is bored looking teenagers staring off into the middle distance. There are rarely any genuinely happy looking portraits. Why is this? Well I think it does come down to engagement and narrative. A neutral or pained expression seems to draw in the viewer, it throws up questions and scenarios. Whereas a happy expression seems to act like a block to that, we don’t question them as much.  For some reason the darker emotions speak to us more strongly, we empathise and feel compassion for those that appear to be troubled or in extreme circumstances, yet seem to dismiss those that are happier. Lets bring back happiness into portraiture, but do it so that people engage more; it’s not easy but something that would in itself be rewarding.

Can you do that?

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It is a darn shame the world would see you burn in hell before let you point a camera at a child, but I got lucks last sunday when Kat from work asked me to photograph her little bundles of joy in Leeds. They really are one of the best subjects to capture, inhibitions are low, moods swing fast, they are full of energy and really responsive to requests..

So they turned up in Park Square, leeds – right in the middle of the financial area, what a place to shoot – it was about 3:30, so ambient light was pretty much gone. So I set up to strobes, pretty high up on 1/16th power and a wide angle (24mm) to get a decent coverage. I got them sat on the bench and asked them to pose… got some funny faces then that “slightly bored” look….

So time to think Ade…

What do you do?

Well I asked who could jump highest… got the 17mm lens, led on the floor and got them jumping in front of me.

I’d won them back – after a few jumps, I just invited them to “play” on the path, simple, no instructions. “Do the red arrows”, that manoeuvre where the planes pass each other, but appear to be on a collision course. So they did that and started running like posessed animals. Fantastic… then I realise that my 24-105 F4 can’t AF on them, they’re moving way to much to contemplate manual focus… so out with the 70-200 F2.8 and put the camera in in Servo AF, so you can lock on to them and follow them around..

I get about 5 shots, then even F2.8 wasn’t working… the AF assist beams don’t work when you’re using radio transmitters either…

So do I tell them to stop? Pose in a place I can focus on them? Risk losing them to bordham?

Nah – what’s the fastest focussing lens in my bag… a Lensbaby V2. Just squeeze and click…

So that;s what I used for 40 minutes – entertained them by changing the apertures and showing them the stars and flowers in the background, they were well into it.

After about an hour of shooting I’d filled a 4 gig card, they looked goosed and we’d all had an enjoyable session.

So you look at the technique…

• a couple of lights set up, one at 3PM, one at 8 – the kids were rarely in position to get “correct lighting”….
• manual focus lensbaby….lots of blurry stuff…

It’s all wrong isn’t it, not professional at all…

You then give a disc to their mum and the next day you get the feedback… they loved them, all of the family around the computer for ages having a right laugh.

Too many shots from childhood are staged, kids having to pose and look unnatural, not character at all – you remember more about the jumper the kid’s wearing than what they were like. With this technique, if you can call it something so grand, I’ve managed to capture 2 kids being kids, which I think is something they’ll really enjoy looking back on in 20 years time – or on their 21st birthday when Kat drags the photos out and embarasses them!

Here are a few shots from the shoot – mostly unprocessed except in Capture One

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What I really like about the prints are their organic and random nature, the visual results, flaws and lucky happenstance tie into my earlier post about aesthetics. Photos such as the one below have a wonderful ethereal feeling that just invites the viewer to explore and see what is in the picture. It is much more engaging with the viewer encouraging dialogue and a greater appreciation for the image. That and it is just a damn cool idea!

“Windmills” Tablate, Spain. © Shaun Irvin

The idea is so cool, that he even had a documentary movie made about him and his truck. Check out the gallery on his site for many more great photos. I would love to see one of these in the flesh.

Story is via The New Yorkers  Lens Blog, check it out for more background on the project.

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Take the above picture of Ade, you might recognise it as the full version of the one that I’ve used as his avatar photo at the very top of the page… It actually came about as a discussion on an online photography forum. A bunch of people were discussing the influence of films on photographs, at which point someone else chimed in wondering how to get a “Sin City” effect on their photo’s.

A long discussion followed, most of which dealing with the processing after the the image had actually been taken. Hardly anybody, other than myself, made any mention of the lighting involved. In order to give myself a bit of a challenge (and also, I admit, to make a point) I set about taking a photo to see if I could replicate the style. I used this poster from the film as my starting point.

By dissecting the lighting used, we can see that Hartigan (played by Bruce Willis) is lit from behind and from either side, creating two strips of light down either cheek and backlighting the hair, but leaving the majority of the front of the face in shadow. I replicated this by using two speedlights 45 degrees to Ade’s back and above him. Another speedlight on-camera provided some fill to keep detail in the face and give catchlights in the eyes.

The resulting image was then processed to black & white, with a slight red tone added to maintain the feel of the film production.

So there’s today’s challenge: Find yourself a film poster or another image that you like (or find inspirational). As part of your ongoing photographic education, attempt to determine the lighting used and then go off and attempt to replicate it in a shot of your own. If you have the time, leave us a comment with a link to the original, and a link to your take on it.

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Studio thoughts

(I’m going to share my experience of a small studio. Obviously, if you plan on a ‘get-em-in, get-em-out’ studio – your choices and needs will be different. And I can’t help you there.) A Studio is just a room. Its just a room where we make pictures. Any room is a studio.  Bear with me here… If you walk into a studio (which is after-all only a room) and the background is set up at one end, where must the camera go? where must the lights go? and where do your subjects go?

Forgive me for raising my voice here but: WHERE is the Creativity?

I simply have a room. I can move chairs, couches and tables – the walls are ragged/painted. If I need a light, I set one up.

Think of it this way… how many of us love shooting location work? Why? I would suggest it’s because we photograph in depth. My studio does that precisely because I have no fixtures that dictate to me what I must do.

Find a building or room that faces north. Use daylight. Frontally, or side or whatever.
Use One Studio light with a dirty great big softbox or preferably a Larson starfish or equivalent. One light. Use silver (not gold, not white) reflectors. Did I mention use one light? (there is only one in the sky). Do NOT bolt anything to your ceiling or walls – do NOT use scissor lifts etc. Especially if you want to aim for, or maintain a casual style of work.

What I’m challenging on is the concept that you MUST have this type of setup, or that you must have multiple lights to make great portraits. When I started in photography, I was told I should have at least three studio lights. Daunting, expensive and not quite correct. Fortunately, my father educated me that the work I most liked used one light (David Bailey, Snowdon, Irving Penn et al).

(Pretty much everything you ever see of mine is one light… FWIW)

My reception area IS my studio. Why would I take people from lovely light and nice furniture to another environment when its all right there to start with?

Think of it this way, why do we love environmental portraiture? Depth is one reason, a natural feel to the background is another. Personally, I appreciate really good environmental portraiture more that work against a background.

I did a series of ‘mentor’ lectures throughout Asia and India for Kodak a while ago…it was a very interesting experience. Every wanna-be photographer goes to a studio to learn.
Every Studio has five lights.
Very few Studios know how to use those five lights.
They use black backgrounds.
The lighting pattern as taught, is hairlight too bright, sidelight too bright and the rest totally flat.
I was photographed in a ’studio’ that was less than 8ft square with five lights.

During one of the seminars I shot a model, low angle, in a hotel at the bottom of some steps, with a single light and a car sunblock screen for a reflector. I dragged the shutter to incorporate the towering garden foyer and ’splashed’ colour up the stairs with a little flash wrapped in unexposed but processed film.

The resulting ‘kodak-roid’ (fuji disguised) when pealed apart caused absolute consternation, admiration and wonder. “Be-yoo-tifool Mr.Williams” “So ravishing M.Williams” “The quality is incrediable Mr. Williams”……..

The final comment from the guy most vocal in his admiration floored me: “But Mr. Williams, this isn’t professional photography – it hasn’t got five lights!”

My final comment on this subject is this:
A studio is simply a place where you make a controlled image. It’s an area out of the rain, nothing more. You don’t have to listen to music only in a music room. You don’t need a special shed to do carpentry. It should therefore be as versatile and as simple as possible. Make your decisions based on what is a natural extension of your wedding work. If you do beautifully controlled posed wedding work in the best tradition, your studio will need to reflect that. If you’re casual and PJ…..?

And yes, in Australia (southern Hemisphere) we look for south light.

A writer interviewing Snowdon was enjoying the comfortable ambience in the room were they were talking. He then said to Snowdon, “Perhaps we could look at your studio now?”

Snowdon replied “You’re sitting in it”

You can make wonderful clip together light diffusers. I haunt ‘Schmattah’ (sorry if that’s spelt wrong) that is, fabric shops. A simple curtain will probably cost less, and be less invasive of your area.

“Good portraiture has nothing to do with how many lights you have, how strong they are, and what brand they are….it has everything to do with the QUALITY of the light you have – and how you modify it, no matter how small.”

His name gets overly used in relation to portraiture, but what lighting system did Rembrandt use? What about Reynolds, Lely, Rubens, Van Dyck? …imagine:

“Mr. Rijn, (I so admire your work, and I’m just starting out in painting) what hair light did you use on that portrait of a man in a hat?”

It isn’t about multiple lights, it isn’t about expensive props, it’s about the subject, the light, the ideas and the expression.

Just further to my quotation about the quality of light, let me explain further, and the hotel light bulb point is part of it… A candle has a certain style of light, early morning light is a different quality to late afternoon (and a different colour) direct sun was something I avoided until I was exposed (sorry no pun intended) to the work of the Western Australian photographers…

We know that all of these light sources have widely diverse characteristics and intensities. Knowing how and when to use these, and how to replicate them in the studio environment is more important.

My point is that it makes sense to explore what you have to work with first, before you go accumulating gear which may or may not suit your requirements, environment usage, intent or throughput.

Throughout my involvement with photography, I always felt a new camera, lens,or a new light would improve my photography. It’s taken almost 30 years for me to fully understand my Dad’s maxim about simplicity.

A female photographer told me she has just acquired a great reception area filled with natural light.  I would really like to see what she comes up with… especially with her eye. Maybe she could show us what she does with a single diffuse studio light in the same position as the window?

Don’t get me too wrong – I love the studio, but I agree we can take it too far… there’s a little thought:

Why do Americans love making films in Australia & New Zealand? One of the reasons is that in the ‘States you have a team of brilliant lighting technicians that can direct 10 gigawatts of totally pristine light replacing and controlling the light existing on the scene’… ‘In Australia, we’re used to the last actor on the set leaving the door open’ (it’s a joke by the way…)

Not all existing light is wonderful, nor is all studio light. It’s down to the individual. At some time there will be a return to the Studio. How we respond to that will ensure our future. The biggest mistake we could make is to return to what has been done, rather than learn from other sources.

We found our portrait market decaying due to over-promotion 10 years ago. Many studios were producing work which simply didn’t compete with the in-store photographer (not different enough). I personally think that there will always be a demand for Studio photography, but I look to the beautiful editorial portraiture from ‘Vanity Fair’ and the like for direction.

For me, (and this is just my opinion) I don’t think the future lies with the standard lighting set-up, standard backgrounds, and standard poses. (BUT to know all of this is vital).

Many Aussie studios who experimented with glamour photography used exactly the same lighting they would for families – no study of Hollywoods Hurrell, Bull or Hesse, no study of Horst or Parkinson, no study of Schrebnezki, Bailey, Lategan or Scauvello. If they’d studied (particularly the latter) they would have realised that the lighting is the simplest you can find, and is not reliant on gobs of make-up and cheesy gauze to make a woman look superb.

I believe there will be a demand for the elegance of Norman Parkinson pictures from the 50’s – it’s already appearing in editorial portraiture… Are we ready?

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Speech of Scholey from James Burns on Vimeo.

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So what seminar did I go for? It was the three day workshop with David A Williams and his ‘Almost Alone’ sessions. Why this course you may ask, well I knew I needed to work on posing groups and couples for portrait sessions and it would be relevant to wedding photography. It also gave me the chance to meet one of the most wonderful and respected photographers. All I can say is that I was not disappointed with my investment in any way, being a hands on course, with posing sessions as well as talks about several areas of posing groups, couples and individuals, it went further and demonstrated  lighting (both available and flash), telling the story of wedding days and even into album design. All this was offered up by the most energetic and caring person I have had the pleasure to meet, David Williams, he also has a wicked sense of humour. One of the highlights was the one on one critique session, it was a great experience and not one negative in there, all the feedback was positively re-inforced to encourage learning and self improvement.

So have I improved following on from the course? I know I have, but I’ve not stopped yet… every day is a new chance to learn and improve, one of the key things that I took away with me, was that now matter what skill level you are at, you can always learn something new and improve yourself. All this without buying any new kit!

So go on, treat yourself to a workshop, course or seminar.

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They make the lens vignette like hell on the 5D when you bend the lens lots, so much so that you get black circles forming in shot, so most of these are using minimal bend. the Wide adaptor makes all your straight lines bendy too, which I quite like. The Long lens enables you to stand in a street and get portraits of people walking towards you without them looking at you. I’ve not got Scholey’s nerve to actually ask people for their portrait just yet! So I stood on streets for a few minutes looking as though I was shooting architecture and because people didn’t see me raise the camera as it was already at my eye, they just carried on with their normal business. 

Here’s a selection from the stroll anyway

I think they are both good additions to the fleet, maybe I should have been shooting on F5.6 or F8 to get a bigger sweet spot, these are all F4 as I’d left most of the apertures at home by accident! 

If you to end up getting a lensbaby and you know me, ask for a go with them before you go and buy them, you may or may not find them useful and it could save you £50!

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The triggers worked really well, managed to get a reasonable distance away and still get the speedlites to fire.

Here’s 3 shots, 2 from some lovely steps down to what looks like a basement fire escape – that was full of cans, duvets and a strong aroma of urine…. lovely The zig-zaggy one is near the old entrance, it’s a bike shed believe it or not! I used a flash either side of Dave to light him, then had one poinging towards me to just light the edges of the bike rack so I only saw the zig zag. 

Quite an interesting location and very handy for those piss-poor light shoots  - just take the flashes and make your own light! 

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