Bolehill Nights - lightpainting in an abandoned quarry products factory
Tonight we had a choice of locations to shoot in the dark. The brewery which is currently accessible but every Tom, Dick and Harriet had been in today, drawing attention to itself. I didn't fancy getting caught by the security packing all the expensive lightpainting gear I had in my bag so made a choice to go somewhere else.
That somewhere else was Bolehill Quarry Works, an abandoned complex I had recce'd a few days earlier. You can see the daylight pics here: http://peakd.com/hive-104387/@fastchrisuk/the-bolehill-bimble-urban-exploration-around-an-abandoned-quarry-products-factory
In all the buildings are lots of concrete bits and pieces which I knew would be good for shooting at night. @neilru75 and I made a trip and set up inside.
The weather outside was less than delightful and the rag tag roof on some sections of the buildings made me nervous. The thought of being skewered by falling roof panels isn't very appealling!
With the conditions being less than ideal, it was a short trip and this is a selection of what I got.
Kinetic Stripe Thing
This is an example of where it's best to use a completely manual lens with the ability to change aperture mid exposure.
I first exposed for the silhouette at f5.6. Without ending the exposure, I stopped down to about f11 or f13 to make the points of light at either end of the stripe appear as starbursts. I started with the flashlight on and held for 6 seconds then slowly panned the camera across the frame before holding for another 6 seconds.
This shot turned out rather pleasing for my pseudo OCD with the ends of the stripe being bang on the rule of thirds!
Going Dutch
I think I got a bit carried away with the Dutch Angle this evening. I seem to have a lot of shots like this one. Unfortunately, I didn't have any smoke pellets with me to create background seperation so adjusted the lights make the figure stand out.
Peachy
I took a Peach LEE Filter gel with me this evening to see what colour combinations I could get with it. Peach can be a difficult colour to mix with others so settled for the Peach gel by itself. The rusty looking colour seemed appropriate for this derelict setting.
Note the motion blur in the old plastic door curtains; the wind made them flap around a little adding a sense of motion.
Fractal Nights
I attached the fractal filter to my 20mm lens and tilted the camera (again!). I placed the model in the middle of the fractal filter knowing that if I spin a light behind the model, this is the effect you get.
Being self critical, I'm not keen on this shot because there isn't as much background seperation as I would like behind the model. Note to self; buy some damn smoke pellets!
Selective Nights
Recently discovering a setting on my Sony A7iii I never knew existed, I was keen to try this selective colour lighting out. The Sony can take a JPG image leaving only primary colours saturated. This is literally straight out of camera with only a crop applied.
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.
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Lightpainting is a photographic technique in which exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source while taking a long exposure photograph, either to illuminate a subject or to shine a point of light directly at the camera, or by moving the camera itself during exposure. Nothing is added or removed in post processing.
If you would like to see more lightpainting please give the Lightpainters United Community a follow and you will be introduced into the illuminating world of light painting!
If you want to see more examples of lightpainting, feel free to check out these guys:
Mafu Fuma | Oddballgraphics | FadetoBlack | DAWN | Mart Barras | Stefan Stepke | Nikolay Trebukhin | Lee Todd | Stabeu Light | Maxime Pateau | Stephen Sampson | lightandlense | Neil Rushby | L.A.C.E.
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My favourites are the first and second, love the Dutch angle, although this is the first I'm hearing that term. Third favourite is the last. Thought you lightpainted th at until I read how you shot it. Graffiti looks awesome and anything decaying is just so appealing to me. It's amazing how it looks comparing to daylight shots and lightpainting shots. I like both for what each is.
Thanks @nineclaws, selective colour is something which seems to get frowned upon by more experienced photographers but I take the view I'm shooting to please myself so I'll carry on doing it until I get bored lol. Also the effect in camera is much better than the Photoshopped selective colour stuff I've seen....
I take it you mean frowned upon by photographers in general? I can't say that I agree with the frowning upon. I don't know if my camera is too old to have that option, but I'm going to check. Absolutely it's a better effect than using Photoshop. I tend to use photoshop only to touch up the basics. Anything else is reserved for use in digital art.
I see we are similar in this as well as the ocd tendencies. LOL!
Oh that's a fine set of lightpaintings. 😍
Cheers pal, making the best of it without my usual smoke!
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This is pretty epic. Adjusting the lens in mid exposure is really ingenious. The sparkle at each end looks really smart!
Thanks @wwwiebe I have also adjusted focus during an exposure too. Start with a close object, then reposition camera to another tripod with the camera still running with the lens cap on and the refocus on another scene. :-)