1969 Chevy Truck Light Painting
Here’s the story behind Derek’s senior portrait session and the creation of his very cool 1969 Chevy Truck light painting. This marks the first time that I’ve done a light painting as part of a high school senior portrait session.
Derek and his 1969 Chevy truck.
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of creating Derek’s senior portraits at his house in Oak Grove, MN. When we were planning the session beforehand, I found out that Derek wanted to have his truck in a few of his senior pictures. This was not too long after I had photographed the light painting of a rare 1929 Packard Boattail Speedster.
Derek and the truck.
While I’m not going to pretend that a 1969 Chevy Truck light painting is anything like light painting a 1929 Packard, it was just as much fun for me to do. I was just a lot less nervous about working around Derek’s truck than I was when I light painted an automobile worth more than 2 million dollars!
The Class of 2019
As I mentioned, this was all about creating Derek’s senior photos. The 1969 Chevy Truck light painted photo was just a bonus. A pretty unique bonus too!
Derek is an easy going guy who didn’t want a bunch of outfit changes. That’s just not who he is. He told me that a wearing a white tee shirt and jeans is his outfit of choice day in and day out. So why mess with it? He also told me that they don’t stay white very long, so the one he sported for his senior portraits was “just taken out-of-the-package” brand new.
Derek, the Class of 2019.
When I arrived at their house, I set up two fully equipped light stands so that I could be ready for anything. They have a fairly big “yard” of several acres, complete with a pond, woods, trails, and on a small lake. I knew I would need extra lighting on this sunny evening, so I had a full arsenal of lights at my disposal.
Derek and I just walked around their beautiful property, stopping at several spots to create his senior images. All of these great spots that you’ll see in his highlight music video are literally in their “backyard”. Nice!
Light Painting A 1969 Chevy Truck
Before I go any further, here’s the low-down on Derek’s truck: A 1969 Chevy C20, 4-speed manual, with a 383 Stroker Motor.
After some great “regular” senior photos with the truck as the sun was starting to set, I began getting ready to light paint it with Derek in the photograph too.
The boy and his truck (before light painting).
Just like we do when we create light painted wedding photographs, the lighting set-up a key to having people in any light painting. Do it wrong and it’s a real pain to complete and have it look cool with a person in the light painting.
Once I had it all set up, it was just a matter of waiting until it got dark enough to light paint. Derek was my “trigger man” (once he wasn’t in the photo), firing the camera with my iPhone as I walked around lighting the scene, and of course, the 69 Chevy. As we finished, the night sky got very pretty, so that’s the sky I used to complete Derek’s one-of-a-kind 1969 Chevy Truck light painting.
The boy and his truck.
More On YouTube
Here’s a very short YouTube video that I’ve put together that shows just some of the steps involved in creating Derek’s 1969 Chevy Truck light painted senior photo.
Please check out some the other videos on our channel and feel free to subscribe to see more of what we have going on down-the-road. Thanks for reading our post and have a great one! – M&J