Light Painting

[technomadia]

Chris and I are currently camped in southern California with our friend, Ben Willmore (http://www.whereisben.com). Ben is known world wide for his photography and Photoshop skills. He's a technomad like us, traveling around teaching and writing about Photoshop.

 

Last night, he decided that the Oliver Travel Trailer is so awesomely cool looking that it needed be photographed with a technique called 'light painting':

 

 

This was done with nothing more than various colored flashlights, which Ben used to draw the lines and captured with long exposures. We took 65 different images. He then used Photoshop to layer the various shots to make this image. He made it look easy anyway.

 

 

Now there's a new way of viewing an Oliver

 

We had a blast doing these with him.

[SeaDawg]

That's beautiful!

Your friend is an amazing artist. (And how did you two both manage stand still so long, through over 60 photos...?)

 

Sherry

[technomadia]

It was tough

 

Actually, we only had to stand in for a few frames while he light us. And then he just layered that image into the rest. I was actually operating the shutter for the rest of the frames for him.

 

Such fun!

 

- Cherie

[tumbleweed]

Whoa! Way too cool! When I was in photography classes, we had a similar assignment, however nothing as complex as this! We didn't have photoshop either, we had to keep exposing the same frame of film over and over with the various lights and never knew until we developed the film in the darkroom whether we had a working image or not! After one stage of lighting, we had to put the lenscap over the lens to block light until we were ready for the next stage. Fun and challenging! Your friend did a great job! I just got CS3, so maybe I need to start challenging myself again! Thanks for sharing! Geri (earthdancer)

[mountainborn]

Sweet ! Betty and I had been following tweets, but this is a great finished photo !

[astrocaster]

Wow, that is a nice interpretation of you two and your Oliver! Your friend, Ben, does good work. As with Earthdancer, this reminds me of photography and drawing classes quite some time ago (for me, at least). No Photoshop: just covering the lens of the film camera in between short bursts of drawing with flashlights and/or candles. In this connection, I am still in awe of the way Picasso did this back in 1949, "light painting" complete images of bulls, bullfights, etc. in just one take, with one continuous line.

 

Steve

[bugeyedriver]

What a great image of you both and your trailer. It's retro-like / futuristic / fun / inspiring / just overall perfect! The most imaginative Ollie portrait I've seen. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[ScubaRx]

That photo reminds of the hours I used to spend in a darkroom manipulationg a negative or multiple negatives to get shots like that. Sometimes, we would go out at night and take time exposures like this one below. Today, with Photoshop, you can do it all with your computer. Very nice...