HOW TO CAPTURE LONG-EXPOSURE INDOOR LIGHT PAINTING

Setting up indoor light painting can be so much fun. In photography, setting up a shot with good light is crucial. Even in indoor studios, you have to be very careful with the amount of light you have illuminating your subject. With light painting, you have full control over the light that will be shown in your picture.

The key to indoor light painting is having a long exposure and a dark room. The longer you have your exposure set on your camera, the more light you are going to pick up in the image. In indoor light painting, you control this light with nothing but a small hand-held flashlight.

CONTROLLING THE LIGHT

In this first image that I caught, I had seven soda bottles set up to create a composition that I liked. When I was ready to shoot, I switched off the light and clicked the trigger on my camera. While the shutter of my camera was open, I worked quickly with a flashlight to illuminate each bottle.

With light painting, the only thing that is going to show up in your shot is whatever your flashlight touches. In the above shot, I was only interested in capturing the bottles and their reflections. A cool way that I was able to do this was by shining the flashlight through the bottles toward the camera. Doing this illuminated the colors of each soda bottle and created a more vibrant shot.

I am super happy with all of the remaining indoor light painting shots that I was able to capture. The key to it all is just being a little creative. I tried several different styles and was super happy with the results that I manages to get. They weren’t always perfect, but it was such a blast. Go ahead and test light painting out for yourself.

Interested in learning more about long-exposure indoor light painting? Check out some work by Page Sias Photo & Design.

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