Light Painting Part II

I went out to shoot last night with the intention of getting a better grip on light painting. I hadn't really done any since my last post and was itching to try it again. I wanted to get the Houston skyline (cheesy?) in the background, so I did some hunting on Google Maps first for locations that I thought might work.

After driving to the location, I found that the view was perfect; a nice, unobstructed view of the skyline - rare to come by in Houston, it seems. There was only one issue that turned out to be a real problem though. The parking lot had large overhead lighting that bathed the car in an intense white light, which I was worried would make light painting very difficult.

It did.

I spend about 15 minutes painting the nose of the car with limited success, and completely struck out on painting the sides of the car. No matter what settings I used (I mainly stuck with 10sec @ F8), the overhead light simply overpowered my little torch. I decided to take a few ambient exposures to get as much detail as I could, then packed everything up and headed home a bit defeated.

Looking at the photos in post however, I saw that they might actually have a chance. The skyline looked great, as I caught it right at the last hint of dusk and the exposures of the nose when combined added up pretty well.

I started with the original shot of the skyline and built upon it:



I added all the individual exposures that lit individual parts of the nose:



After that, it was a TON of editing to remove annoying and distracting elements like light poles and fixtures. Heavy use of the clone stamp and healing brush here!

As far as editing, I did some minor individual RGB curves adjustments, some sharpening, minor gradients and fiddled with the selective color settings a bit. I also raised the levels just a touch so that the image wasn't TOO dark, although I kind of liked the dark look for this one.

With all that said, I now know that I need a more powerful light source or need to shoot somewhere that is close to pitch black. I did find a good spot though, and I plan on using it again soon in future attempts.

Thanks for looking!

Theo

First time photographing kids...and I'm the one who needs a nap.

I shot my first birthday party for a client two weeks ago. Having never before photographed kids, I was apprehensive about where to start. I knew that I would need a good zoom lens in order to keep up with the little buggers, so I affixed the 28-300 in hopes that it would allow me to capture action nearby as well as any good shots that were across the yard/room/whatever.

As soon as I arrived I realized that I had my work cut out for me. It was a western themed party, and all the kids were dressed up as little cowboys and cowgirls. They were all running and screaming; it was like walking into a beehive!

Having no experience in this subject, I simply just started shooting. I wanted to get lots of good candid shots since I feel like staged shots with kids doing their best "Crest Kid" smiles are a bit cheesy. It was about 4 p.m., and the sun was just right, giving off a nice warm glow in the back yard. I shot mostly crouching or on my knees since I wanted to have the perspective of a 3 year old, which I felt would make the photos more authentic.

When the ponies arrived, the kids all went nuts clamoring for a spot on them. All, that is, except for the birthday boy who was not so keen on climbing onto the beast's back. He slowly came around though after one of his friend's who was a year younger appeared to be having the time of his life. On the horses, the natural emotion was easy to capture, and I feel like that is where my strongest shots came from.

As far as editing, I wanted to recreate the warm sunlight of that early evening and create a nostalgic feel so that the family could look back on the photos fondly. I used RGB curves (each individually modulated) and a masked layer of yellowy-orange to warm the images a bit, applied some high-pass sharpening, and a few masked gradient layers to push the focus onto the kids. I desaturated the images just a touch and....I think that's about it.

I have included a few of the final shots that I feel have the most artistic merit to them. I took many, many more, but I will spare you from them, haha.

On to the photos!