The Wheeler Wildlife Refuge has started having more programs for photographers, usually focused on wildlife, but this past weekend they had one that involved light painting. Everybody that knows me knows I have been doing a lot more of this over the last few years. Rosemary Davidson and Blanca Eyre (aka Maria Blanca Eyre) joined in for this trip which was fortunate giving what came next. Having a group coming to light paint out in the relatively un-light-polluted wildlife area seemed like a great idea. The instructor quickly decided we had more light painting experience and put us in charge. Had I known, I might have been a bit more prepared. Blanca and I scoped out the area and identified a few areas where we could light paint with a group of photographers. Narrow areas don’t work for a group because it is difficult to get that many cameras piled in to one small area, much less with room for a photographer behind each one. We chose an area where everyone could line up on pavement and shoot towards a treed area. Meanwhile, Rosemary set about explaining what light painting was, showing people images on her phone and helping them get their cameras settings.
A list of resources for the items we used is at the end of this article.
My first experience with light painting was years ago by Dennis Calvert who was on the leading edge of light painting and part of the Light painting world alliance (LPWA). He was showing us tools and techniques and I stood there snapping pictures of his light designs and patting myself on the back when I could get a decent capture thinking OK, hurry up and do more stuff. He kept trying to get people involved and show them how to do stuff. At the time I was just interested in ‘taking’ the picture not ‘creating’ the picture. Now I understand that creating the picture is what it is all about. So what you will see in the following images is not perfect light painted images but rather a teaching session of some of the basic tools and skills that can be used to create beautiful images!
As darkness fell, we started checking out some test shots using a LED light staff (which is pretty bright) to see if it was getting dark enough and to get some camera settings dialed in. A photo of the disassembled staff shows the Concentrate C5 color changing light that is at both ends.
Here is another image using the LED Light Staff where you can see that if it is spun in one location too many times it blows out the image highlights in that area. This is true for much of light painting if you paint too much in any one area. For this image the Light Painting Brushes (LPB) color lens hoods were used with the universal connector and Coast G26 flashlights to paint the trees.
This image is an example using the Ball of Light tool to make an orb. This is accomplished by spinning the tool in a circle and slowly moving around a fixed point on the ground, trying to keep the center of the orb both vertical and over the spot on the ground. We used a simple battery operated tea light for a marker on the ground. The trees were once again painted with the LPB Color Filter and Hood. The red line is what happens if you fail to cover the red light of your remote with something.
There are a number of different ways to make orbs in addition to the ball of light method. Light Blades, Light swords or LED umbrellas can all be used. Light blades are shaped pieces of plexiglass that light up their edges when a light source is applied. They can be taped or colored with sharpies or gels to create and endless variety of designs. There are Facebook groups dedicated entirely to light blading. Light swords come in many varieties from the kids toy light up sword to fancier variations. Pictured below are some of the sword options from LPB which include a standard size and a large collapsible size. The collapsible sword shows up as three bands of color instead of one continuous shape. The LED umbrella’s are sold by various sources on eBay. It is a rather intricate process to remove the umbrella part. A color changing flashlight in the handle lights up the shaft and an additional flashlight lights up below the handle. A customized blade known as the unicorn blade is newly available as a limited edition from LPB. I was lucky enough to score a couple of prototypes from the creator, the amazing Johnny Griffin from Arkansas. The red colored one is quickly becoming one of my favorite tools! The LPB 12″ model is shown on the right. I haven’t taken the sharpies to that one yet.
A couple more tools worth mentioning are the fiber optic Whip and squeeze lights. There are a multitude for fiber optic gadgets for light painting. I have many of them. My favorite is the fiberflies pixel whip. Squeeze lights allow a little sparkle of light to be placed within the image. They come in colors or a gel can be taped over them.
The following image has a lot going on! When light painting it is important to pay attention to who is drawing what and where, as you will “color” on top of someone else’s creation. In this image we have Rosie in silhouette doing her “warrior” pose. This silhouette could have been improved by using the orange light completely behind the figure. It is possible to see many of the tools described above used in the image. The LED light staff is easy to detect from its color changing pattern of light. Both fixed and collapsible LPB swords can be seen as well as a LED umbrella orb. 
While we were light painting in one area, other activities were going on in other locations. At the end of the evening those that were left moved to the cornfield to try to catch the Milky Way. Unfortunately I tried looking at my phone app without my reading glasses and had the wrong month! It misled me to believe that the moon was not going to be there. Unfortunately with the moon and the humidity it was not a stellar night for Milky Way photos. I did however capture something I’ve never gotten before which was a “Moonbow”.
Charles Gattis
19 Sep 2018Really, really neat. We can use this blog as an advertisement/text for the course in the late fall. You think.
Bill Gates
10 Nov 2018Awesome article for learning how light tools work. Beautiful images.