1977 Classic Corvette Light Painting
I’ve got a fun story about the 1977 Classic Corvette light painting that I created last summer. Like most of you, we had a very crazy, busy summer and fall in 2017. So I’m finally getting around to writing some about some of my non-wedding light painting photography.
Back in June, I had the pleasure of creating a 1977 Classic Corvette light painting right here at our Portrait Park. Our good friends from church, Gary & Carol, own the car and they’ve given her the name “Snow White”. So I’ll refer to her as Snow White from now on.
I have photographed Snow White one other time as well. In 2015, she was featured as part of their family portraits with the whole family sporting Minnesota Twins attire. The family photo was also created in our Portrait Park.
The White Corvette!
Gary dropped Snow White off on a Tuesday afternoon. We set her up where both Gary and I thought would be the best angle and background to show her off. There was a chance of rain at about 3:00 am on Wednesday morning. So if I got started light painting when it got dark, which was about 10:00 pm back in June, I should have it done in time before the rain arrived.
Rain, Rain Go Away!
So I’m about an hour into the light painting photo and I feel a raindrop. Then another. And then another. I pull up the weather radar on my iPhone and the rain front is arriving four hours early! I gotta get a job as a weatherman.
There are now multiple problems happening all at once. First, I haven’t finished the Corvette light painting. Two, Gary doesn’t want the car to get wet. Three, the rain is coming and I have a camera and lens on a tripod and it’s tethered to my laptop sitting out in the open about to get wet. Four, I also have all of my light painting photography equipment sitting out in the rain too.
Photograph of a 1977 Classic White Corvette before light painting.
So I quickly close my laptop, disconnect everything, and run all of my camera, lighting, and computer gear up our deck stairs and set it in our family room. Then I run to the front of the house and open the garage door and pull out our minivan “The Enterprise”. I run back to the backyard and get Gary’s Corvette started and get it in the garage and out of the rain! Whew!
Thankfully, it was only sprinkling at that point, but none of these items would do very well getting wet.
Snow White – Take Two
The next morning Gary touched base to ask how it went. I told him the whole story and asked him if Snow White could have a “sleepover” so I could try the light painting photography once again that night. Gary was ok with the idea and he said he might drop by to watch for a while.
The second time around went perfectly! Gary did stop by to watch and I showed him what I was up to on my laptop screen. He hung around for a while and left me to light paint all alone with just Snow White and a couple of million mosquitoes.
Everything went very smoothly. It also got cool enough that night that the mosquitoes even went away after a while! In fact, once I finished the light painting photography of the whole car, I decided to take a go at light painting just the front of the Corvette and also another light painting of just the back of Snow White. After all, Snow White was staying overnight in our garage, so I had a captive subject. I’ll share those cool images with you down the road.
Light painted photograph of a 1977 Classic White Corvette.
Since it was the wedding and portrait season, it took me a few weeks to do the post-production on all three light painted photographs. But each one turned out very cool! Gary has a very nice panorama printed on aluminum of all three of his 1977 Classic Corvette light paintings.
Thank you, Gary and Carol, for letting Snow White have a sleepover. I’m looking forward to light painting Snow White’s cousin, “Cyclone Cy”, a pretty red 1964 Corvette Coupe later this year!
Here is a one-minute video that shows all of the different images that went into this light painted photo of “Snow White”. Enjoy!