Lightpainting in ancient woodland

After what has felt like a long ass summer, I'm really looking forward to darker, longer nights so I can go and paint with light. I've been a lightpainter for around 10 or more years and every year during the summer, it's like a drought. The nights are so light and so late that my productivity for photography goes right down. I've noticed my peak period for photography seems to be October to December. Mainly due to it being dark enough at a more hospitable time but also because the weather must still be bearable.

During the summer months I look for other things to shoot which don't involve the dark. Inevitably I manage to find dark places anyways but it's just not quite good enough. This is my last post with this summer's efforts: https://peakd.com/hive-142159/@fastchrisuk/my-summer-in-monochrome-my-entry-in-to-monomad

This is a post about an ancient woodland called Padley Gorge in Derbyshire. It's been a big favourite of mine and @fadetoblack over the years and we are long overdue another visit in the dark!

Padley Gorge is full of ancient secille oak trees and all of them are twisted and gnarly. There isn't many places like Padley and I believe this may be due to it's location at the bottom of a valley in the Peak District. The weather in the Peak District can be a little more extreme and these trees are the result of a micro climate sheltered from up top.

Padley's Grotto

Using the rocks and trees as a frame, I shot @fadetoblack bang in the centre of frame. I then panned the camera across and exposed for Tim eight ways. Four of the exposures were deliberately out of focus. I remember being impressed by the way the colours merge in to one another. Padley Gorge has a micro climate and is misty quite a lot which is one of the reasons we frequent this place.

Amorphous Nights

This was an image created using an iPad as a light source. First I exposed an out of focus image on the iPad of a nebula on to the image sensor in the camera. Then, without ending the exposure, I swapped lenses and tripods to a pre-arranged postion pointing at @fadetoblack. Then it's a simple case of rotating the camera at 120 degree increments around the lens axis. All shot in one photographic exposure.

Padley's Grotto

From a top night out with like minded light painting lunatics down at Padley Gorge. Straight out of camera, shot in one photographic exposure using a camera rotation tool, custom white balance, a firework and three gel changes. Thanks to Lee C Wright (not on Hive) for changing the gels stood at the back, to @fadetoblack for standing still trying not to flinch while I spin the firework and finally to @inksurgeon who hopefully managed to film it all going on!

The Four Lightpainters of the Apocalypse

Possibly one of my all time favourite lightpainting images and certainly one of the most memorable. I was experimenting with blur and out of foucs stuff in images at the time. This is a simple 8 way camera rotation but with alternate colour gels on the light source at the rear of frame. Four of the roations were in focus and four out of focus. I remember being giddy as I clicked the shutter with this one and thinking "how do I follow this?"

Parabolic Fire

Another simple two way camera rotation but with the model holding a drill loaded with steel wool. The secret with burning steel wool is not to use too much trapped in a crocodile clip attached to the drill chuck. I remember being impressed at the time with the way the sparks linked with each other.

Penny for the Guy

"Penny for the Guy" is what one says in England around November the 5th, a celebration of the capture, hanging, drawing and quartering of Guy Fawkes, an infamous member of the GunPowder Plot to blow up the houses of Parliament. As an adult I know find it surprising in this woke world we now live in that celebrating such a thing hasn't been banned!

This shot was from a trip to Padley Gorge with the usual bunch of ne'er do wells but this time with a few small, cheap fireworks. The cheaper ones are better for this sort of image because they don't burn for very long. Shot in one photographic exposure as usual.

Equilateral Evolution

This was just a camera rotation test shot with a single flashlight behind @fadetoblack stood in the middle of our favourite spot in Padley Gorge. Tim uses a vape and create a big chuff a vape smoke to add to the atmosphere. There was already a bit of mist in the Gorge which really helped. I'm obsessed by Padley Gorge and the random way the flashlight hits the bare tree branches.

A forest to make your eyes bleed

This is just a simple two way camera rotation with different colour gels over a flashgun. I like the way some of the light spills over in to the opposing side. Here the model used a flashlight to make their own silhouette stand out from the background. I did this because I didn't have any smoke pellets with me at the time and I usually use smoke to create background seperation.

Five go Mad in Padley

This was the result of a collaboration with Tom Hill, a lightpainter from the Northeast of England who came down to Derbyshire for the evening. Tom's favourite genre of lightpainting is caligraphic light waving and the idea was to create a collaborative piece with both our strengths.

First I compose the frame so that Tom was bang in the centre of frame. He spun a light sabre lightpainting tool in a circle. I then replaced my lens cap without ending the exposure and panned my camera on the tripod across to the right slightly. I then removed my lens cap and Tom repeated the circle. Then it's a case of repeating the steps while rotating the camera on it's lens axis.

I liked this image because Tom was consistent with his lightpainted circle; hard to repeat every time perfectly but Tom is quite good at this stuff!

The Foggiest Night in Padley

We had been getting epic fog at the time and when combined with a full moon, it would have been rude not to rush out in to the night and shoot it with lights!

I'd been using this tilt and pan technique quite a bit where just before the end of the long exposure, I pan the camera to create a kinetic stripe of light across the frame. It works better if the camera is tilted to a "dutch angle" for the stripe to aim somewhere other than horizontally across the image.

In this case, the flashlight was in a strobe mode to give the appearance of a tracer round.

Evolution of a Pyromaniac

Another shot from Padley Gorge with a budding light painter, Dean Farmer. Here he is stood with a drill in hand keeping perfectly still, an essential skill with light painting! Thanks Dean for bringing along your enormous Godox strobe, what a difference it made lighting up the woods!

It was also an introduction for Dean to the world of steel wool burning. One has to be careful as it's easy to set stuff on fire and for the record we take all necessary precautions!

About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.

Social Media
https://www.facebook.com/fastchrisuk
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fastchris/

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WHAT IS LIGHTPAINTING?
Lightpainting is a photographic technique in which exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source while taking a long exposure photograph, either to illuminate a subject or to shine a point of light directly at the camera, or by moving the camera itself during exposure. Nothing is added or removed in post processing.

Single exposure Light Art Photography - no layers - no tricks - no photoshop

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If you would like to see more lightpainting please give the Lightpainters United Community a follow and you will be introduced into the illuminating world of light painting!