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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To try them out I took Dave out in search of the yellow fields we get in West Yorks, they’re not actually that yellow yet so ended up next to some field or other near Pontefract. I set up 3 lights – one with a silver brolly that has a soft-box like cover on it, so it looks like a little Westcott. Inside that I put the 580 EX2 at 1/2 power. That provided a pretty large source of soft light – in the photos this was lighting from the left in all the shots.

Off to the right, quite a distance away compared to the softbox, was a 550EX shooting plane hard light – that provides the light fill on the right of dave’s face

And finally, to light up the crop a little, I’ve got a 430EZ pointing down on the oil seed at 1/2 power – just so you get some of the crop showing as well as the sky retaining some colour.

All in all, pretty simple really, but quite like the results – the contrast of the large, close, soft light source to the left against the harsher, smaller distant light source to the right is pretty distinct

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I’ve got a few portraits done now, just looking for 3 more cars to use in a leaflet – to show variety, I could just use loads of Elise photos but that would probably give the wrong impression!

I guess the trick with this, and any other venture for that matter, is to get the marketing right…. which is always a pain! Will keep you posted

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Over the course of the years, our photographic adventures have brought us into contact with many wonderful, delightful and some downright-spankin’-fabulous people. We’ve shot some; shot with others; and even more again we’ve shot for. Hell, some of these people we’d take a bullet for, or very possibly go Polar Bear wrestling™ (again). It’s nice to think that, in return, we’ve also managed to touch the lives of some of these people, be that with our words, or our images, or possibly by introducing them to the magical wonder that is the game of Buffalo™. It stands to reason that when your kids grow up and find responsibility, you can’t help but feel a bloom of photo-paternal pride as they spread their wings.

So step forward Mandy and “Meandering” Paul Charlton. Friends, colleagues, teammates, informants, drinking buddies and partners in crime, the pair of them! Tomorrow afternoon, Mandy & Paul celebrate ten blissfully happy years of marriage together by renewing their vows in front of family and friends. In recognition of the fact and also in recognition of our friendship, Mandy & Paul have asked the 4 Togs to step up to the plate and bat the photographic events of the day right out of the park. We pondered such a request long and hard… “But Mandy”, we said, “We’re not sure the universe is capable of containing the sheer levels of awesome sauce that the four of us, firing in unison, might produce.”. Thereupon, Mandy turned to us with large, liquid-filling eyes and pleaded with us on her very knees to make sure that even if our awesomeness was to cause the end of the world; she wanted it to be at her very own vow renewal.

Faced with such a dilemma, between the devil and the deep blue sea; between a rock and a hard place; between the Real Mark Scholey™ and his favourite tilt-shift lens – what could we do? There are none more loyal than we to our friends and rising as one we told the Charltons that we would accept the task, even if it proved to be the undoing of the very fabric of the universe.

Alas, almost immediately, tragedy struck and Ade was struck down with a case of the Scholeys. Being unable to fulfil his pre-ordained role, we searched for someone magnificent enough to return our number to the nearly-magic foursome. Rising from the flames, like a veritable phoenix of photographic philanthropy, arose none other than Jamie Emerson – a talent so deadly that even Chuck Norris fears him.

Tomorrow, dear friends, the (nearly) 4 Togs fight, photograph and drink, as one. What will occur? Can the world survive such a monsterous outpouring of talent? Will anybody ever know?

There’s only one place to find out. Right here, when the 4 Togs come to town on bizz-nizz. Mandy & Paul: We who are about to shoot, salute YOU!

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Enjoy!

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I’ve decided to aim for the Wedding, Portrait, Autombile and Architecture markets as a starter for 10 – a the former are probably where the money’s at, the latter being things I actually enjoy doing. So you look back through 4 years of work and suddenly realise how much you’ve shot in that time. I got the 5D on the 27th feb 2006 and have probably shot on average 100 shots a day since! So the sheer bulk of what you need to look over is quite outfacing.

Then you realise that your photography has changed over time – both in style, subject and processing. In 2006/2007 I had the saturation slider to the max, lots of landscapes and a few weddings to fish shots from. So do you use shots from the past which you are pretty happy with, but know you’d not shoot any more? It’s tough one to answer, so I’ve copied shots to a new folder ready to get critical on!

I think the next big problem is that the site I’m building is hopefully going to get people to buy stuff off me or hire my services… so you really have to take a step back and look at it objectively, which is something I’ve not really done before. When you’re taking shots as a hobby, even as a semi-pro, I don’t think what you put on your website is that critical as your mortgage doesn’t depend on it – on my current website, I’ve got stacks of shots of people getting drunk, and to my mates that’s the best part of the site! So now it’s case of whittling down to a few shots of each genre that portray where I’m going… so do I just pluck from the last year or last 6 months even? Tricky.

The other thing I’ve noticed, as I’m looking at the older photos as “normal” people see them – moments in time, nostalgia, seeing people I’ve not seen for ages, and it’s quite refreshing as I usually look at shots as a photographer would and am more concerned about the composition and lighting! I remember taking them, it was a period when I was out most nights learning new things every day, trying anything and everything just to see what works. A lot of duffs of course, but I kinda miss that childlike wonderment you get when you’re new to something.

Ah well, the nostalgia must continue I guess – 2007, here I come!

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FWAPhoto is  a photo a day project with a difference, it is not one submitter but many, and so has a constant rich vein of photographic talent to draw from. You can even submit your own work to the project. It’s definitely  a site worth browsing with a fresh hot cup of Java and some time to kill.

Not quite a 365, but  a few of us set up a 31 day photo challenge that we’ve talked about before. It’s coming to a close soon and has been fun to participate in and see what everyone has produced. Seeing how a group event differs from the very personal 365 exploration has been interesting and informatinve.  I know a few, including Matt, are hoping to make it a 365 experience.. let’s hope they can. For me, I’m thinking about it again.. maybe this time I will finish the task.

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I really like this video: Today

It has a nice warm feel, and the transitions of facial expression makes you think and is also capabable of giving you a dose of the warm and fuzzies, if you let it. I think it is the transition of emotions and the question of “what made them smile?” that really helps you connect with this, along with the very well selected soundtrack.  Watching with and withoutaudio, shows how important the right choice of audio is for pieces like this. The new DSLR cameras with their video capability are going to open up opportunities in portraiture,  the moving portrait can be very engaging. Hmmm anyone got a 5D2 they want to loan me?

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Here are a couple of good links for you: cold snap across the globe,  from The Frame by the  Sacramento Bee and the Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, via the Big Picture at the Boston Globe, which also has this Snowy Scenes compilation.

Enjoy the white stuff.

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