Spring 2009 Photo Show and Competition

[MarkBarbieri]

The rules have been posted here.

There are six categories: Western, Food, Black & White (Daily Life), Water, Painting with Light, Open/Digitally Altered.

Painting with Light is, as I understand it, a long exposure picture in which some of the subject is "painted" with a light source during the photograph. There are lots of options for "paint brushes." I've seen fireworks, flashlights, Q-beams, and even glow sticks used. Sometimes the photographer does the painting, but that isn't always the case.

Here is a shot of my son using a sparkler to paint a circle:


Here is a shot of a crowd of kids using glow sticks painting an abstract pattern:


The light source doesn't have to be in the picture. Sometimes you use the light to paint objects in the picture. If you use colored lights (or lights shining through colored gels), you can change the color of objects in your picture.

Here is a picture of a tent that was painted from the inside with a flashlight:

[arcproducts]

Mark - I absolutely LOVE the TENT photo. All the shots are cool - but that one made me stop in my tracks. So did you light it from INSIDE THE TENT or did you flood it with light from the outside...... pretty pleeze, I can keep a secret.

[Mindy H]

The tent shot is way cool Mark!

[MarkBarbieri]

There is not big secret to the tent shot. It's a pretty common camping shot, almost to point of being cliched. I think that the appeal is because we associate night outdoors as somewhat spooky and the warm glow of the tent gives us a strong sense of refuge.

To make the shot, I set the camera on the tripod and had it low to the ground to get in as much sky as possible. I would have preferred to use a much wider shot, but I was carefully restricting my field of view to hide stuff like the picnic table, minivan, neighbors tents, etc. I shot in "bulb" mode. My technique was to open the shutter, run into the tent, wave my headlamp around in all directions, run back out of the tent, and turn off the shutter.

That particular shot was at f/4, ISO 800, 40 seconds, and 17mm. I took it using a Canon 1D Mark II (1.3x crop) and a Canon 17-40mm lens. The high ISO was to get more stars in the picture. The time of night is pretty important. Too early and you won't get stars and you'll get too much other stuff. Too late and the sky will be a boring black.

For my "paintbrush", I used an LED headlamp. If you ever shoot at night, I strongly recommend using one. They are a great hands-free way to see what you are doing and the batteries last a very, very long time.

Here's a similar shot that I took early last year down at Goose Island State Park:

[Mindy H]

Can you imagine what the non-camera enthusiast would think watching you do this shot??? :o)