Rainy day grey to black early. Three shortened light days of overcast falling water. My camera isn’t built for shooting in rain or at night. I have difficulty rule playing when I’m creating. I have to go off the beaten path. I have to try it every which way. I have to find a way around whatever obstacles I encounter. I just have to try.
CAFE AFTERLIGHT
The idea of painting with light was a new direction I took early this year, purely by accident, when playing around with photographing shadows. One evening last month, I needed some creative time. It was dark, cold, and wet. There’d been three days of rain and it was down to a drizzle in the evening. I had no expectations of shooting anything decent. It was all about having some much needed time to connect with myself.
LIGHT QUESTIONS
REDLIGHT DRIPS
GREENLIGHT DRIPS
Photos and the experience from that night gave birth to this post, Abstract Conversational with My Best Friend. Chatting with @bil.prag and seeing some incredible light painting photos in his post, Long Exposure Lightpainting Evolution, has inspired me to go further, in directions I hadn’t thought of. I’m still looking for a safe place to play with photographing fire and sparks. Recently, I did two more outings in rainy darkness to experiment further.
LIGHT CURVES
LIGHT TREE
REDLIGHT PATH
It’s the season of additional lights popping up everywhere in the city, providing more opportunities to play with colours and patterns. I’ve discovered that wet streets and drizzle amplify lights. Areas that have an excessive amount of lights require much faster shooting than those that are darker.
The following three photos were taken at the intersection of two major streets bathed in lights from multiple sources. The shadowy abstraction of people in these photos really appeals to me, something I’ll need to explore in future shoots.
LIGHT STROKES
LIGHT CROSSING
LIGHT CORRIDOR
While shooting these photos, I set the shutter to manual, which allows me to hold it open for the duration of the photograph, in whatever time increment I choose. I focus on the area I want to shoot and then hold the shutter open as I move the camera while not looking through the lens. I’m shooting blind in a sense and guessing the exposure with each shot. I never know what I’m going to capture. There’s an excited anticipation in not knowing when taking a leap of trust in my intuition.
LIGHT WAVES
O LIGHT
The photo below is of a car crossing a small, quiet intersection. Only hints of the car are visible, if you look closely.
GHOSTLIGHT CAR
A food courier was waiting at the lights on his bicycle. I was standing there fussing about lining up the shot, the timing and felt rushed because the lights were a few seconds from changing and he’d be gone. He had just begun to push down the pedal with his foot and take off as I took the shot. Most of the time, I don’t think I’ll capture anything decent, but I don’t care. It’s all about the process in the moment.
LIGHT CYCLE
The following two photos were taken from a distance with the source being a string of coloured lights on someone’s balcony.
LIGHT CASCADE
LIGHTFISH SCHOOL
Sometimes, there will be a subject that is reflected light where I don’t move the camera while taking the photo. Instead, I focus on one spot, keeping my eye looking through the lens, while I guess the exposure time. Lots of guessing involved in this process. This is how I shot the last photo, which is of this bizarre sculpture that is actually blue. I’ve taken daylight photos of this sculpture, which can be seen here for comparison.
SCULPTURAL HIGHLIGHT
When you’re creating, do you break the rules, take risks, and try things in ways that aren’t supposed to work?
If you don’t, what stops you?
All photos taken by Nine with a Pentax digital 35mm camera.
@bil.prag and seeing some incredible light painting photos in his post, Long Exposure Lightpainting Evolution, has inspired me to go further, in directions I hadn’t thought of. I’m still looking for a safe place to play with photographing fire and sparks. Recently, I did two more outings in rainy darkness to experiment further.