Read on for a chance to be mentioned on my page, with your photos and a link to your page!
A lot of you will have heard of, or even tried light
drawings. If you haven’t I’m about to explain what they are, they are well
worth a go, really fun and you can get some really interesting and successful
images. A light drawing is an image you paint using a torch or another source
of light, then you get a glowing line drawing when the image is developed. Now I
say developed, but I think the best way personally, is to produce the images
digitally. This is for the pure reason that a perfect image sometimes takes a
few trial runs, and you don’t want to waste a film, or be disappointed when
your film is developed. So like I said, digital is my personal preference for
this technique. The great thing about light drawing is that, you can use a
really basic camera and still get good effects. All you really need is the
ability to change your shutter speed. The reason I said that it can take a
couple of times to get right is because you can’t see what you are drawing, so
it’s all a guessing game really. So to create a light drawing you will need:
A camera
A dark room
A tripod
A light source such as a torch
When I say dark room I don’t mean it in the photographic
sense, I literally mean a room with no light. Attach your camera securely onto
your tripod and set the shutter speed from anywhere between about 3-30 seconds.
If your light is really bright you’ll want to reduce the time. I like to use
quite a dim light and draw for quite a while, so about twenty seconds, but this
is something you can experiment with. Now turn off the lights in the room, and
make sure the only source of light is coming from your torch. Press the shutter
and draw anything you like, just paint the air in front of you. Then check out
the results. If your results are too bright you’ve got the shutter speed set
too high, or your light is too bright.
Tips- if you move the light very fast, you will create a
thin line, move it slowly and the line will be thicker. Switch the light on and
off and you will get separate lines.
Glow sticks and coloured lights make really interesting
light drawings.
When I started doing light drawings, trying to paint perfect
images in the air, I had many failed attempts, but I soon learnt how to make it
work.
Tip- Don’t always try and draw a perfect picture, swooping
your arm and spinning around in random motions can create better images
sometimes.
Now if you are wondering why this blog post is titled with a
quote, it’s because Picasso said that, I love that quote I think it’s
wonderful, but that’s not the reason I chose it really, in fact Pablo Picasso
himself did light drawings.
An Image by Picasso.
As you can see, his light is illuminating him and his
background, so I am pre-warning you that your background and yourself may
become visible. But sometimes that really works in your favour. Another famous
light drawer was a guy named Eric staller who creates some fantastic images
with light.
Here are a couple I took. Not great, but really fun to shoot. I took these with my friends and it was a real life, dancing around with torches haha, so if you fancy a laugh....
Bye for now
p.s
I hope you enjoy making light drawings. If you have any
light drawing pictures you have taken, email them to me and I will feature them
on my blog with a link to your webpage or twitter. More views for you!
Salvador Dali
These two images were shot for vogue.
Fay Godwin
