How to Do Light Painting

© Adobe Stock/bereta

This is a particularly interesting (and fun) genre of long exposure photography, usually done at night, and you use it to illuminate a foreground object (for example, some rocks in your foreground) while your shutter is open. You literally take a small flashlight and “paint” over an area with a few strokes, and when your exposure is complete, that area where you painted is “lit” and clearly visible. You can go from subtly lighting an area to making it look like you set up studio strobes, and it’s all based on how long you paint with that light on. First, you’ll need a flashlight of some sort (see page 142 in the night and Milky Way photography chapter for some recommendations). Once you have your light, and your shutter is open for your long exposure, you’ll start painting over the object you want lit in your nighttime image. It takes a bit of trial and error to find out exactly how long you’ll need to paint, so expect to shoot a few practice frames every time you do a light painting, as you figure out how long to paint (the longer you paint, the brighter the lit area will be. So, in most cases, you’ll only be painting for a very short time, but again, it’s based on how large the object is that you’re light painting). Also, once you start painting, don’t stop or pause, or you’ll get bright hot spots on those areas—keep it moving and fluid the whole time.