Light Painted Coca-Cola Products
Here’s the story about my very first long exposure light painting project, Light Painted Coca-Cola Products.
I’ve recently returned from a fantastic photography workshop on Light Painting at John Hartman’s studio in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.
There were six of us in attendance at this somewhat intense, but really fun photography workshop. John was kind enough to share his vast knowledge on the subject with us and it was truly a great experience!
Each of us was told to bring a still life project with us, mine was Coca-Cola products that I borrowed from one of our longtime friends and clients, Rusty & Renae! Thank you so much!
Light Painted Wedding Photos
We have been dabbling with “light painting” at a couple of our weddings last year using our strobe lights to fill in where needed. This was several months before I had even heard about John’s light painting class. The biggest differences in my images and what John taught us is that his technique is done in near total darkness and it’s not done with strobes, but with lighting devices of all shapes and sizes.
Light painting photography creates a finished image that’s impossible to get from traditional lighting techniques. It’s very precise and brings out details in a way that’s not possible any other way. I now have my Light Painted Coca-Cola Products image hanging in the studio printed on aluminum. It looks totally awesome! You have to check it out next time your in the studio.
Here’s one of our strobe light painted wedding images we created at Luke & Ashley’s Grand View Lodge wedding last summer using our two powerful WITSTRO MoLight AD360II-C’s to light the trees and waterfall after Luke and Ashley left us to return to their wedding dance.
Nighttime at the pond.
Landmark Center Light Painting
Here’s the same strobe technique and a “before and after” look from Branden & Janna’s Landmark Center wedding. This image was created in Rice Park during the Pokemon craze, with literally hundreds of people roaming about the park.
Light painting with Branden & Janna at Rice Park (before).
Light painting with Branden & Janna at Rice Park (after).
My light painted Coca-Cola products project started out looking like this:
The “before” image.
And after more than 60 different images were combined in Photoshop, the completed light painting looks like this:
My completed Light Painting!
To get a better understanding of the complexity of this lighting technique, I’ve created a short video that takes you from start to finish on this fun method of image creation.
Our class also watched and learned as John light painted this 1957 Cadillac Eldorado at his clients home.
Light painting a 1957 Cadillac Eldorado. Here’s the before image.
The next morning John gave us the files he created the night before and we got to create our own light paintings from scratch. Below is my completed version of that cool, classic car compiled from dozens of separate exposures and pieced together in Adobe Photoshop.
The finished light painting of a 1957 Cadillac Eldorado.
I’m working on a pretty home interior that I’ll be sharing with you in the next few days and I’ve got a classic Corvette lined up for a light painting soon. Now, here’s the fun part, I’m looking for more cool cars, motorcycles, aircraft, home interiors and exteriors to light paint for my next project! Give me shout if you or someone you know has something unique that would look great light painted. Thanks!