Light Painting Photography

Light Panting is when you change the shutter speed of your camera to let more light in. When this is done, it will let you be able to physically draw in your background with a laser/flashlight while your camera is taking a long picture with its opened shutter. When the camera is finished taking the picture, your laser/flashlight creations will appear in your finished result!

Step 1: Supplies:

To do this, you need...

-A camera that has a manual shutter speed (I choose a GoPro for this project and i set it to night mode)

-A Laser or Flashlight (Drawing utensil)

-A stand or tripod for your camera

-And lastly, you need LOTS and LOTS of darkness!

Step 2: Change Your Cameras Shutter Speed

Go into the setting or mode in your camera and change it so you can manually hold down the shutter button or just set it to an amount of time to leave the shutter opened. In the intro picture, i set the shutter to 10 seconds and it have me plenty of time to work on my web and light spider-man up!

Step 3: Set Your Camera Up

After this, you need to place your camera somewhere pointing where you want to draw. Make sure the spot you put your camera in is sturdy and won't move around while it is taking your picture because any slight movement may ruin your overall result. Now close any windows or turn any lights off to prevent any light from getting into your picture; Or if your outside, wait until the sun goes down!

Step 4: Drawing and Painting

When you activate your camera, start drawing! Use a laser to get nice marks into your drawing or use a flashlight to light up an object in your picture (that's how my spider-man was light up) or swing it around to create interesting picture! Now you are done! Share your photo with others and comment of other cool things you can do with light and a camera!

Step 5: Extra Ideas

The photo I posted was very basic and it was just to demonstrate how to use this technique. Here I found two awesome projects from other people.

The first picture was done by burning steel wool and spinning it with wood and rope to create awesome sparks.

The second photo was made with color changing LED's placed on the sides of the car as the man rode to create these light skid marks.