Light Painting – All You Need to Know

Corporate Light Painting

Over the years I’ve worked with companies and organisations shooting at openings, as team building and providing staff led content for websites etc. I’m really not sure if I’m the only photographer in the UK doing this but I’m not aware of anybody else. I’ve worked with ‘La Coste’, ‘BBC’, ‘Barclays’, ‘DLA Piper’ and ‘Manchester Art Gallery’ to name just a few.

Light Painting Photography at Festivals

All over the country there are some brilliant light and art festivals that I have done workshops/demonstrations at such as Doncaster Light Festival, Didsbury Arts Festival, Oldham Illuminate Festival, DIGIT Festival and Manchester International Arts festival. I’ve also shot at music festivals such as The Big Chill and Kendal calling. Here utilising a dark space attendees create their own light painting art within seconds. It’s nice to have a longer period of time with people and watch their creativity really come alive.

I’ve really been enjoying doing light painting photography workshops at festivals recently. It’s such a fun thing to do, light painting photography is quite a random process and you never know how the images will look. But technical expertise and practice can help you capture the images you want to create – this random process keeps it exciting and keeps people coming back for more.

How to light paint

It really does amaze people at festivals when they basically wave a torch/light source around in the air and instantly see what incredible work hey have created.

There’s no tricks or photoshop involved, the skill is in employing photographic technique. Picasso was the first person to develop this technique and we are using exactly the same techniques today.

You need a camera where you can control the exposure and a dark environment. That’s about it! The camera shutter is opened but does not record you as it can’t detect you in the dark. The camera sensor then detects the light source as you introduce it to the exposure.

‘How to’ Video

You can even shoot light painting on a phone. HERE is a ‘how to’ video I put together for the brilliant Illuminate Festival in Oldham during lockdown.