Making Light Drawings and Then Photoshopping Them

I enjoy making light drawings using long exposure times and various light sources. The key is to do it at night or in a dark space. I use a Nikon D70 and in manual mode set the shutter to 4 - 20 seconds and execute whatever idea I have. You almost always get better results with more people.

The image above was made in photo shop, but the image below shows the raw image before photoshopping. I made the raw image by putting LED lights into a shopping bag and then making sweeping movements in front of the camera outside at night. I had my wife taking the pictures free hand to washout sharp edges. Because of the high contrast and solid black you can change your photoshop layer mode to “lighten” and then all the black falls away and you get interesting intersections of light.

Here are some great flickr light drawing groups

Flickr Light Junkies
Flickr Light Painting
Tdub303 on Flickr