Peter Zentjens

Because of my Nostalgia series I received a few inquiries about the “Painted with light” technique. About what it is and how it works. So, I decided to write a small article about it. This way, everybody who is interest in it can read it.

I will not claim to be an expert in this technique, nor will I pretend that it’s something I discovered myself. It’s an old technique in the experimental photography. Rather then writing a complete tutorial on the technique I’ll try to reconstruct the path that lead me to where I’m today in the wonderful world of “painting with light”. At the end I’ll describe my own application of this lighting method in still life photography.

First things first. Like many of you I’d never heard of “Painting with light” until I bumped into the work of Emil Schildt. Emil is an experimental photographer who’s experiments go in many directions. I’d like to try more of the things he has done, but, at the moment I’m still in the painting with light phase. Although Emil’s subjects are completely different from my own (his are nude models mostly), he was a huge inspiration for me. So, before you continue, check out his work in the painted with light category. (While you’re at it, check out the rest too, it’s worth a peek!).

You will see that it really has a painterly feeling. Naturally, in Emil’s case, this feeling is enhanced by his other techniques, such as his special printing methods and so on. It’s this feeling that I was after in my lighting. What really got me experimenting was Emil’s description of his used techniques. Here is his painting with light tutorial.

Based on this tutorial I started to experiment. In those days I was still shooting analogue and I quickly stopped again. The reason was simple. I had little spare time for my hobbies and practicing a new technique on film, having do develop them and mostly just see that it didn’t work out, having to start over again… Let’s just say it was discouraging and I wished I had a Polaroid camera.

There was something better then Polaroid though: digital. When I bought my first digital camera I pick up my experiments again. The camera wasn’t really suited for it: long exposures resulted in more noise and enough dead pixels to fill up the sky with stars. But those problems where nothing Photoshop couldn’t handle and now I could experiment freely, see the results instantly and adjust my technique according to what I saw.

I don’t know if it’s because the subjects are different, or because I’m jut not Emil, but I started to disagree on a number of things in his tutorial. I started to develop my own technique, or better said, my own work flow. Thinking of it that way, which is totally different from what I was thinking when I started writing this, I’ll end up writing my own tutorial anyway as I now see the differences with Emil’s tutorial that I had already forgotten.

My work flow:
- Where emil advices to use a light bubble with a reflector, I advice to go for a flashlight. I suited my purposes better. Of course I’m working on a totally different scale. If you’re a model photographer I think you will have to stick to Emil’s advice. But if your subjects are smaller, like my still lifes, well, I preferred a shielded light source which produces a beam which is easier to aim with an to concentrate on one part of the image.

- I don’t think I need to say this, but to be complete: you will need a tripod.

- My first active step is simple yet takes up most of my time. It’s setting everything up. I start with a quick arrangement of my subjects on a table or whatever I’m using. I’m not carefully composing yet. Just putting the items in more or less the position I want to have them. This will usually changes ten times or more, but that’s not that important now. Right now, I’m looking for the angle mostly, for how to set-up the camera on the tripod.

- Once the camera is up on the tripod I start to very carefully arrange my items and to really build up the composition. Of course, while doing this, the change is big that angle and crop are slightly adjusted again. All of this has little to do with the technique we are discussing, so let’s move on.

- If this is the first time you are using this technique with this combination of tools (camera and light source) you will have to set up a balance between your camera and what you want to achieve. Now I’m mostly talking about the settings and amongst those most of all about white balance. Of course if you should raw you have the ability to edit the white balance later on and then it’s not so important. I wanted a very warm feeling so I leave my white balance to auto which results in a warm, reddish glow from my flashlight. It’s that combination, light source and white balance, that will dictate the colors and general mood. If you change your light or camera, you will have to search for the right settings again so try to stick to the same equipment as much as possible. When I bought my new camera and specially when I started to shoot in raw I totally lost direction and it took me a while to get the results I wanted again. On the other hand, once you used the same combination for a while, getting the results you want will go a lot smoother as you can know what to expect.

- According to the size of the subject, the distance to it and so on, you will have to decide on a diafragm setting and a shutter speed. For the ISO value I would stick to the lowest one your camera has to reduce noise to an absolute minimum. The big advantage of digital is that you can do a few trial runs to see if you set up your aperture and shutter speed correctly. If not, don’t change your aperture ! You need that to pick the DOF. The big difference here is that Emil’s shooting models that have to sit still, so you want the fastest shutter speed possible. But my still lifes aren’t going anywhere, so I adjust the shutterspeed and keep the DOF where I want it.

- Now, to make the actual picture, or to do your trial runs, I said the camera on “timer”. I make the room pitch dark, which is very important as you don’t want any light source then your own interfere with your image. I use my flashlight to find the camera again, push the shutter, and wait for the timer.

- It’s here that the fun starts. Trust me, you will need a whole bunch of trials before getting it right. Work out a “path” for your light source to follow. Try to get the lightning right in one smooth motion. You can also hesitate with the light source on certain points of your composition to highlight them. You can move slowly or very fast to achieve different effects. Just be creative! Remember one rule of thumb though: keep moving the light or it will burn a spot into your image. If you want to highlight something, for example, make a slow circular motion to get a soft edge. Of course, it’s totally possible that you want that burned in spot, like I said: be creative. Just think of it this way:
your flashlight is your brush, light is your paint.

- Repeat this, over and over again, until you get what you want, until you have your path worked out, the way the strokes of light have to be applied just right.

- You are shooting digital, don’t be afraid of Photoshop or similar programs. Photoshop is your friend, even more accurate, Photoshop is your darkroom. Not all digital cameras give good results on longer, darker exposures like I already mentioned. So it’s possible that you will need a lot of Photoshop work to correct noise and dead pixels but I use it for a little more then just that.

- At this point, I have several images which I like, but you will see this happening too: picture 1 has the light just right on item 1, picture 2’s background is far better lit and picture 3 has a spot of light on this tiny detail that non of your other picks have. I’m just giving an example here. I think you can guess my next step, right? I’m going to melt those 3 images into one where I have the light exactly the way I want it, everywhere. I’ll do this using masks mostly. Hiding bits from one image, showing bits from another, until everything is just right. I already mentioned the noise work (no longer necessary for me with my K10D) and the removal of dead pixels and do some other small adjustments like a little dodging, burning, small color corrections etc. Just like I would do in my darkroom in the ol’days.

That’s it! That’s all there is to it. By now you should have one beautiful painted with light image. By way of inspiration, I hope, I’ll show you one of mine again. If you want more, check out my Nostalgia series

update: this tutorial continues here