It was Judy Sara who sent me an e-mail about this free workshop as part of “big Lens” week with Denis Smith.
Six am at Elder Park in the middle of winter is cold. Denis Smith was hopping around from one foot to the other looking cold but also excited to see people turn up to his light painting workshop. “Set up your tripod and set the camera to 30 seconds f9 and I will tell you when to open the shutter.”
Denis started spinning his lights and we opened our shutters to capture some of his light painting magic. Apart from Frances and I, Judy Sara and her husband were there. You can see how the orb is made from the following sequence.
He also brought a range of light wands. Many of the lighting implements consisted of pluming supplies and perspex shapes attached by rubber stoppers to torches.
As the sun arose the sky lightened and we had increasing difficulty capturing the painting. We could either shorten the exposure time which would give us less time to play or shut down the aperture, which would reduce the intensity of the light painting. Both were problematic.
Diamond photographics had sponsored the workshop and were demonstrating Olympus cameras. In particular there was a special setting, “Live composite” which will sequentially build an image in front of your eyes from half second exposures. This was very helpful when building a light painting of multiple elements. You could glance at the live view and plan your next move. This feature seemed to cope perfectly well with the increasing light of dawn.
I even had a go with the mobile phone light painting brushes.
At the end it was nice to get into the warm car and drive home against the rush hour traffic. We really enjoyed the workshop. Thanks Judy, thanks Diamonds, thanks Denis. Lots of fun in the dark and the cold.
Camera Clips 