Technique
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My painted with light technique explainded
by Peter ZentjensBecause of my Nostalgia series I received a few inquiries about …
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
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Use the categories below to view my work Featured on RB home page and Groups Macro and close up Abstract Black and white, monochrome, selective colouring Blue Flowers Landscape, nature, seaside, ..... in colour Trees & forests (view larger recommended for these images) Alternative greeting cards Paris Collaboration: writings and images People Images available to download All photographs and artworks in this portfolio are copyrighted and owned by the artist, Anne Staub. Any reproduction, modification, publication, transmission, transfer, or exploitation of any of the content, for personal or commercial use, whether in whole or in part, without written permission from myself is prohibited. All rights reserved.
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white gel pen scribbly effect on black paper. / Behold project is going well. :) heres more! / “stock image”: http://mondkalbstock.deviantart.com/ / The ‘Behold’ Paintings: / / The ‘Behold’ Drawings: /
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No post-processing, just got lucky with a laser pointer.
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Camera: Canon EOS 1D M3. Lens: Canon Lens EF 24-105 IS USM / f/22 3s ISO 50 / Lens was zoomed while the shutter was open. This is a motion shot of a garden with a “garden elf riding on a lady bug”.
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Results of an exercise playing around in pshop picking out fine detail (the fence mesh) for selective colour using a new (to me) technique in an attempt to speed up workflow, and it works a treat I think. The image, being square, doesnt make a good card in my opinion, but it is there if you want it…... Up to now, I’d painstakingly gone around details with the eraser on a layer. This time, I used the magic wand and the delete button, along with careful settings of the tolerance, then a big eraser on the main areas. What would normally take me half an hour, ended up being 5 minutes instead – a vast improvement, which also opens up other options when working with selections which get repeated on many small areas in a work.
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Flower Photogrphy
by Ann GarrettI have been asked a few times whether I add backgrounds to my flower portraits after the event so I thought I might add a journal giving …
I have been asked a few times whether I add backgrounds to my flower portraits after the event so I thought I might add a journal giving a brief “How I did it” :) At the moment I have no studio lighting, so all light is natural from a large bay window – I do have to pick my days and use nets or a curtain to screen any harsh direct sunlight. The black background is a length of black velevt hung behind the flowers, the white background was a bit trickier. A friend managed to locate a large sheet of quite thick opaque white plastic, this I cut into 2 sheets and both are placed behind the flowers so that the natural light comes through from behind the flower as well as from the windows. Exposure is tricky, but digital and immediate previews help to get it right. That’s it really – I used to try cutting out flowers in order to change bakgrounds but I was never happy with the results. Hope this helps :) Ann
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Putting Secret Techniques into perspective. This was shot at 70mm from the middle of the road, and the other was shot at 175mm from the gap near the gate. Title selected from the subjects in my spam folder….... / SPAM PHOTOS / NEW ZEALAND / FROGS / LENSBABY / INFRARED / BEACH / INDUSTRIAL / PANORAMAS / LANDSCAPES
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Photographic Workshops
by koukei!http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f82/koukei/advancedtechworkshopw…
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Landscape Photography - A Beginner's Guide
by NATURELENSDear All Spurred on by a recent tutorial journal from Nakomis I have completed another part of planned additions to my main web site c…
Dear All Spurred on by a recent tutorial journal from Nakomis I have completed another part of planned additions to my main web site covering my experiences to date of Landscape photography. If you wish to view this it can be found via the following link: A Beginner’s Guide To Landscape Photography. OR From my main website home page by following the ‘my learning curve’ section: NATURELENS. I hope you find it interesting. Regards Neil
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Secrets of a drunken master.
by Gregoryno6Among the numerous styles of kung fu that evolved over generations we count Zui Quan, or Drunken …
Among the numerous styles of kung fu that evolved over generations we count Zui Quan, or Drunken Fist. There are several tales that account for this origins of this style. This one most appeals to me: (Quoting Wikipedia) ...a young man… offended a Kung Fu master, who issued him a challenge. The young man knew that his kung fu was no match for the master’s, became very upset, and got drunk. Thinking that by drinking he had thrown away any little chance he may have had, he went into the fight recklessly. To everyone’s surprise, the young man, who had been stiff and awkward before, had now become loose, flexible, unpredictable, resistant to pain, and totally fearless. He defeated the master, and later developed a style based on his fluke. Reckless, unpredictable, totally fearless. That’s my approach to fractal art in a nutshell. I started messing around with Tierazon and MBF Lite pretty much by accident. I went through a kid-in-a-toyshop phase for a few months earlier this year, grabbing programs of any sort off the internet. Originally I was looking for music programs; I got distracted. What can I say? My understanding of how fractals work is slightly less complete than my understanding of nuclear physics. There are tutorials available for both the programs I use, and maybe one day I’ll get around to studying them. In the meantime I’ll continue to explore the possibilities in my own fashion. What’s my secret? It should be obvious by now: I haven’t bothered to learn the rules. I’ve been asked if I have any specific idea of what I’m aiming for when I’m working the fractals. HA! I’m as surprised as any of you that anything I’ve produced was worth a second look, much less a third or fourth or tenth. If I can offer any parallel at all I would say that I go at the fractals like a photographer taking his camera out into the streets. I hope I’m going to be in the right place at the right time to capture a moment. I start with any image I’ve got in the library, or sometimes with the traditional Mandelbrot, and select options at random. Fractals are like any image – they have active areas, and they have static areas. I go for the action. Zoom in, enlarge, go to Julia (and I really must learn one day who the hell this Julia is), change the colours. Whatever! At some point – and I never know when until it’s happened – I get a vibe off something. I don’t see a picture, but I get a sniff of a possibility. Ballerinas, for example, was the final image in a series I called Germs in line. There were no dancing figures, just a line of blobs across the screen. I fiddled with it, didn’t get much that was interesting, but all of a sudden…. magic. Have I made it sound easy? It is easy. All it really takes is an instinct for a memorable image… and patience. I’ve posted about thirty images at RedBubble, and I have maybe another half dozen that I will eventually add. Thirty images out of 1700 that I’ve saved. Actually saved. You can multiply that by any number you choose between five and ten to get an idea of the total images I’ve created. Away you go, then. Fractal your little hearts out! Thank you for your interest. ADDENDUM 26/08/07 – this entry shows in my activity list as having featured on the home page. Did anyone see it? / I didn’t…
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F32 – 100 ISO – EC +1/3 -32 SEC - Use the categories below to view my work Featured on RB home page and Groups Macro and close up Abstract Black and white, monochrome, selective colouring Blue Flowers Landscape, nature, seaside, ..... in colour Trees & forests (view larger recommended for these images) Alternative greeting cards Paris Collaboration: writings and images People Images available to download All photographs and artworks in this portfolio are copyrighted and owned by the artist, Anne Staub. Any reproduction, modification, publication, transmission, transfer, or exploitation of any of the content, for personal or commercial use, whether in whole or in part, without written permission from myself is prohibited. All rights reserved.
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The Process of Etching
by Marilyn BrownFor anyone who is interested I thought I might create a series showing how I developed my image Mother. / The First Stage of etching was…
For anyone who is interested I thought I might create a series showing how I developed my image Mother. / The First Stage of etching was to cover my plate with Hardground, from here I draw the lines into the hardground leaving the plate underneath exposed. / Place the plate in the acid, taking care to remove any bubbles with a feather. The length of time you leave it in the acid depends on the strength of the acid, room temperature and the depth of line you wish to create. / Here is the result or 1st State of my design. / / For the second stage of this plate I choose to use a softground. Soft ground enables you to produce textures, and the lines drawn into the plate are softer in appearance. I place different textures onto my plate ( alfoil, onion bag, netting etc) and ran it through the press, leaving an imprint in the soft ground. Once again place it in the acid, however if you want some areas to remain white (unbitten) cover them up with a liquid bitamen, as I have done in areas of my plate. / Here is the result or the 2nd State of my design. / / The next stage is aquatint. A fine layer of airbourne resin settles onto the plate which is carefully melted onto the plate. It is now a process of covering up your plate with liquid bitamen in stages. The first bite (plate placed in acid) will leave the area covered with bitamen as a highlight, the next bite will be slightly darker, etc creating tone on your plate. / Here is the result or 3rd State. / / Here you see I’ve used two different colours when I inked up my plate, you can also apply a roll up of relief ink (as used in linocut and woodcut printing techniques), the result is shown below. / / Another technique can also be used called deep bite. This is achieved by once again painting out choosen areas with bitamen and placing the plate back in the acid for a much greater time. This give a random result creating a some what abstract result. / This is the result or 4th State. / / What more could you do to the plate you ask…... well chop it up of course! / Unfortunately I don’t have any of those prints left, and they were my favourites and added to the theme of seperation of the image that I was trying to convey, but hey at least they are hanging on someones wall!
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A Bug’s view of the world
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The first version was my first attempt at this particular method. / This second version is a collaboration between myself and Steve Jones, an extraordinary photographer and expert on the Caravaggio Technique. Check out his work, it’s awesome! Steve Jones
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Editing Tips and Techniques for my work, Rocky Passage
by Jennifer WoodwardClick here for details
Click here for details
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Digital Rain
by kathywaldronthis is how to control the weather and add the rain indoor…lol / 1. creat a new layer, set foreground/background colours to black and wh…
this is how to control the weather and add the rain indoor…lol / 1. creat a new layer, set foreground/background colours to black and white. go to Filter>Noise>add noise….amount 400% should be ok then hit ok to create particles. / 2. Rain… go to Filter>Blur>motion blur. Direction -62, distance 94px, hit ok, Image>adjustment>equalize the layer to increase contrast. set the blending to lighten so only white rain is visible. go to Filter>blur>blur more to soften the rain.
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A rework of an old monkey pic using the ‘dragan technique’ (http://andrzejdragan.com/)
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Use the categories below to view my work Featured on RB home page and Groups Macro and close up Abstract Black and white, monochrome, selective colouring Blue Flowers Landscape, nature, seaside, ..... in colour Trees & forests (view larger recommended for these images) Alternative greeting cards Paris Collaboration: writings and images People Images available to download All photographs and artworks in this portfolio are copyrighted and owned by the artist, Anne Staub. Any reproduction, modification, publication, transmission, transfer, or exploitation of any of the content, for personal or commercial use, whether in whole or in part, without written permission from myself is prohibited. All rights reserved.
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Hello, Thank you for stop by to take a look at my new upload. The lady was painted in an “Old Masters” technique of / EggTempera+Oil on canvas (90X70 Cm). Affectionately, Rachel
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New Photography & Art Blog
by Cameron GrayHey BubbleBuddies! :o) I’ve been working on a new blog for the last couple of days, basically it contains Tips, Techniques, Tutorials,...
Hey BubbleBuddies! :o) I’ve been working on a new blog for the last couple of days, basically it contains Tips, Techniques, Tutorials, News, Articles, Videos, podcasts etc about art & photography that I’ve either found, written or anything that has helped me with my work that I’d like to pass on to others. There’s only a few posts on there at the moment, but I’m constantly adding new ones and I’ve tried to add some helpful interesting posts to start it up. Parablevisions.WordPress.com/ Let me know what you think, and if there is anything you’d like me to cover in regards to my work or anything you’d like to see perhaps. Enjoy, – Cam
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Tips and Techniques to Shooting Waterfalls and Creeks
by Jeff BurnsI wanted to post this link on the group. / Andrew Bosman / Has offered up a link he put together a…
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Details to "Approaching Autumn"
by Jeff BurnsThis is how I shot – Approaching Autumn Nothing special to …
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