For this workshop, we experimented with the idea of using light to create art in photography. To get the effect we wanted, we had to be in a dark room with a slow shutter speed on a camera. That way we could move the lights around in front of the camera with them showing up in all the spots it was in the final photo.
While light photography isn’t a technique used too often, its still a technique that’s been used by a lot of great artists/photographers. One example of this is Henri Matisse.
This is the main photo that comes to mind when it comes to light photography.
To use light, we experimented by using:
- Glow sticks
- Phone flashlights
- Various gel sheets
Unfortunately, as we found out when we tested it, the glow sticks weren’t bright enough to show up in the camera, so we had to stick to the other things that we had.
Heres the photos that I made during this:
For a majority of these, I draw the images by attaching the coloured gel sheets to my phone camera so the light came out a different colour. My favourite one from this was my fish drawing. The fish drawing was supposed to be shapes, but they ended up looking more like a fish since the shapes connected. I prefer the idea of it being a fish.
Something I find interesting is that when you brighten the images up, you can slightly see the person who created the photos. This is because we took the photos with a low shutter speed so the light showed up. The more still the person moving the light around was, the more clear they show up. You probably could create some cool photography using various different shutter speeds to create blurry effects around a specific subject.
As you can see. there’s a blurry photo of myself in the middle of the drawing. You can tell I didn’t move around too much, since while I’m blurry, I still show up. You can also see that I stood more still for the cloud, since you can see myself easier in that photo.
Here is an example of how if the person making the flower moved a lot, they don’t show up due to the slow shutter speed. The background stayed the same since it didn’t move. If someone wanted to create a haunted look in a photograph, this would be an interesting way to create such an effect.
This workshop didn’t exactly relate to my theme or specialist practice too much, so to make it relate to my project I drew things that reminded me of the childish drawings I used to draw when I was younger, like a flower, a spiral, a cloud, and a fish.