I'm a big fan of rotating a camera on it's lens axis and producing fairly abstract images. Tonight I ventured out in the dark with a modified camera rotation tool which is now much more precise and definitely more stable!
I travelled over to North Leverton Windmill knowing that Richard the miller would usually light it up in the dark. He sets up a single LED floodlight which can be seen for miles around. I always message Richard in advance to let him know there will be a strange hooded figure in his garden shooting his windmill! And to suggest he gets the kettle on!
Out in the dark calibrating my tool
It's not often I manage to get the alignment on my camera rotation tool this accurate. I've spent ages in the dark adjusting and obsessing on alignment and tonight was a breeze!
This is North Leverton Windmill rotated eight ways at 45 degree increments:
The Modified Tool
This is the modified camera rotation tool where I've changed a part that allows the lens axis to sit central to the indexing rotator. The longer piece here in the images is actually a nodal rail as used by landscape photographers and is much more sturdy than what I was previously using.
Frame
For this one I used the surrounding bushes as a kind of frame to enclose the rotation:
Freehand Faffery
To get the angles of rotations, there's a locking screw that forces the camera in to set positions at precise angles. If you loosen the screw, it's possible to freehand rotate and tonight I spent ages happily spinning! For this one I moved the camera leaving the shutter open all the way around through 360.
Changing positions
With camera rotation photography, only slight adjustments to point of view or the centre of the frame can have a dramatic effect:
Freehand
You know you have the alignment nailed on a camera rotation tool when the circle is pretty much perfect. If the circle is out of alignment, the results will look more elliptical. It's quite satisfying to nail a rotation shot!
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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WHAT IS LIGHTPAINTING?
Single exposure Light Art Photography - no layers - no tricks - no photoshop
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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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