Photos Jamming in the park

So yesterday I met up with couple musician buddies of mine, we sneaked into a park, ran around from park security and etc. Until we reached the water and chilled. You know some Led Zeppelin, Beatles covers. Some jamming and good times. Then I pulled out my camera and played around with lights again.

 

Love them. The last 4 especially, they would work well as album covers/art.

The first one is ruined by the green looking car lights in the background, they are just a little distracting.

 

So you took the light and ran around waving it? Or is that a photoshop edit?

 

Good stuff!
You have a talent with the lights

 

I understand how you made the white light trails but I don't understand how you highlighted the subjects so well?
Please tell me your secret
It looks very good. How were these shot?

And I agree with shadowed that you do have talent with lights

Edit: Just looked at the exif data on flickr: 30sec, f3.5, @18mm, ISO100, no flash fired. Which just confuses me still... Did you have your friends sit still for the 30 second or only while you lit them or...? pls explain

 

Great shots, really great.

 

He probably fired a strobe off to light each person up during the 30s exposure?

 

I tell them to still as still as possible for 30 secs, mostly because if some light hits them again, and they have moved it will come out blurry.

Then I have my small GE battery powered "closet light" (white florescent tube about 10inches long) which I use to light different parts of the subject. If I fired a strobe off, it would not have had the same feel/effect the lighting has now.

I set the camera for 30secs (Not enough time to light the subjects + draw something coherent) and I had to use a LED flash light to shine on the subject so the camera could focus in the total darkness.
Then I click the shutter with 10 sec exposure, and just draw. The harder/smaller stokes of light is a small coin sized Divx led light - a form of swag from one the EXPO's.

This was kinda just goofing around. I want to do more serious light drawing shoot now, as I can create shadows and light subjects in whatever way/spots I want.

Thanks for the comments everyone.
Mah flickr

 

Neo, You could have set a strobe off wirelessly to generate the same effect...making sure that the exposure wasn't too long and the additional light source (closet light) hadn't been cast directly on the subject. I've got a few of these shots from the film days on some negatives under my bed somewhere. I like #2 best. Make sure you move around a bit more next time Can you post these in a larger size for viewing?

 

Ahh Thank you for explaining. I thought of a strobe as ozstrike mentioned but reckoned it would have created a much larger "bleed" while your method I couldn't quite figure out how you could've lit them so well with a small LED light Two lamps and two exposures was the explanation for that

The colors of that closet CCFL lamp is wonderful against the darkness. It comes out almost plastic'y yet almost studio lit.

I think I'll see if I can get my hands on one of those closet battery CCFL lamps and try out that lighting method. It really looks good. Hopefully I can reach some results nearing what you have

Thank you for sharing

 

I made so you can click and they'll open bigger, but flickr maxes out at 1024x768 I guess that's because I'm not a pro user. Anyways... Yo Vers, scan some in and please show them off. I'm curious now.

As for you OleJ, definitely try it out. It's really easy and fun. Oh and what did you mean by "two exposures"?
Mah flickr

 

Just out of interest, how do you not get yourself in these kinds of shots? I might be being a bit thick, but surely there should be some form of you in the picture?

Lovely btw, I adore the 3rd one.

 

I actually do end up in the picture. If you look closely, you can see dark shadows of me in various places in the pictures... since I almost constantly move, and don't shine light at myself, I end up only as a vague shadow or a ghost. It makes sense, 30sec of exposure, vs me standing 1-3 secs in the spot. I'll be just a blur.

Also when taking photos like that, gotta think about background lights. Like Matticus noted, a little thing like a car lights can become a big light spec after 30sec exposure. I told the guys to face east for the reason that even though it was 2AM, there was still a light reddish tint to the darkness of the sky. (now I'm thinking maybe it's just light pollution from Manhattan 30 miles in that direction... or perhaps the sun far below the horizon); but either way although it looked almost the same sky, after 30sec exposure it seemed much more nicer and red in the pictures.

P.S. Vers what do you mean by "Make sure you move around a bit more next time." As in change locations? I know some are exactly the same spots, I did not think they'd come out too interesting, we just took 14 photos that night. I need to get some friends and go out do some more serious light painting...

 

It also helps it you dress in all black with long sleeves and gloves. Make a black t-shirt ninja thing for your head. All that ghosting is light reflecting off of you, so it you remove any light surfaces that will give you away.....I think it will disappear. Also, depending on your camera, you can get wired remotes that will allow you to lock the shutter up in bulb mode. That will get you past the 30 second limit on the camera.

 

Didn't you say you did a 30 sec for one lamp and 10 sec for the other lamp? Or was it one 40 sec exp.? Or is your camera able to do something I don't understand?

I think the ghosting in the pictures actually stem from him blocking the background light as he is darker. I'd reckon his ghosting would be lighter than the bg otherwise?

 

I was not clear enough. The camera is taking 30sec exposure; it takes me about 10 secs to light the person, and then move one to draw something in the air.

You're right, In this case the background was lighter than I was thus the dark ghosting.

As Mr. JJ pointed out, I'm thinking of getting a wired remote. But I would love it even more to get the device so I could set timed multiple shots for future projects.

 

I'm not sure what camera you are using, but the Nikon MC-36 has the function to do multiple timed shots as well as timed shots longer then 30 seconds. I'm relatively sure that Canon would have a similar product.

 

wow, I have to say, this pics are awesome, specially number 5, in my opinion the best... also, doing all this in 30 secs... man, the stress... very good job. the lights look terrific, and I'm amazed at your friends' "stillness", I've tried similar things and my friends always end up blurry even if they move just a little (either that or they suck at being still )

anyways, that LED lighting you mention gave the whole thing a very cool feeling. can you buy that in a normal camera shop, or did you buy it somewhere else? I'm interested...

once again, great job, completely agree with some of the comments up there, some of these pics could perfectly be in a music group's cd cover artwork. impressive.

 

nice pics. interesting idea as well...

 

That is a simple household closet light. I stole it from my dad. He bought it in Wallmart I think, or some regular store. I drew it in this post but really any light source would be fun to work with.