Painting Buildings…with light!

I could be writing today about a certain announcement that a certain computer manufacturing company made yesterday about a certain device that will relatively change your life. But I’m not. Actually, there are so many blogs and news articles out there about Apple’s new iPad, that it would be pointless to the “I-wish-it-had-this-and-that” discussion that for one, I couldn’t get in to for lack of knowledge about the different kinds of processors they could put in the darn thing! Seriously though, if you are wanting to read information about the iPad and determine for YOURSELF if you need it or not, just go to the manufacturer’s Web site (you know you’re going to do it anyways).

So, for today: In LIGHT (ha) of several e-mails and comments about such imagery, I want to share a few paintings. Light paintings, that is. This is a fairly worn out subject online as well, but each quality light painting you see is something special. Glowingly, these types of images provide a unique aesthetic quality to a subject that is yes, unnatural, but also surprisingly appropriate. Remember, the name of the game is storytelling, and painting affords a photographer the ability to tell that story in a new way. Aaaand, the fun thing about painting is that the act of doing such exists outside the realm of Photoshop (not that there’s anything wrong with Photoshop, but this technique definitely pre-dates digital technology).

I learned how to paint from Wyman Meinzer, a good friend and mentor, who through his career as a photographer has managed to document the State of Texas to an extent and with such quality that is evident of his passion for telling the state’s story through images. As a matter of fact, Wyman supplied the paint job for two of these images (top image, and the boulders above)!

Painting is actually a fairly simple process, but the technique can be problematic depending on what you are painting. I have included images of structures (generally what you see painted), and if you are just getting in to painting, I would suggest starting with something large, like this set of silos I shot in West Texas. All you need is a tripod and a source of light. In the case of all of the images above, the painting was created using a normal spotlight with an incandescent light bulb. Using a long shutter speed, upwards of several minutes for each of these (notice the “star trails”), the light is applied much like paint is applied to a wall (just make sure the light source doesn’t creep in to the frame). Think how light naturally appears, and experiment, that’s the advice I was given!

Painting is just as easily achieved with the use of flash technology as well, whether it be studio-grade strobes or speedlights. Light, and how it functions, is what’s important here. The two images above and below this paragraph were taken with the use of one or two speedlights, gelled for color effect. I like shooting this way because the ambient is much more controllable, allowing for that sky to really saturate! I still use a tripod in this case, as well as a cable release (use this all the time when painting).

It’s really nice to be able to envision what you want the painting to look like before you get on location, but as we all know as photographers, this doesn’t always work out, nor would you want to limit any serendipitous ideas to be acted on once you are in “shooting mode.” This particular one came out of looking at the faint light my car lights cast on this abandoned house as I pulled up to it. Those lights were powerful enough for the time I wanted to spend with the ambient, so one speedlight gelled amber did the job.

Until next time, experiment! Learn a new way to tell a story!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Blog, Flash, Learning, Lighting, Photography and tagged with Abandoned, Church, Flash, Lighting, Old Buildings, Painting, Photography, Texas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.