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Light Painting

It seems like it has been a month since I posted but in fact it has only been a week. I’ve been busy with some other project and I have not had time to post as often. I wanted to share some of the light painting work that I did during the night photography workshop that I attended last month in Joshua Tree National Park. This photograph was taken in Hidden Valley, my favorite place to photograph in the park. This was part of the night’s assignment to light paint and capture the night sky. I chose a very difficult subject to light paint because I wanted to see how far I could push the light painting techniques. By the way, the bright star above the tree is Jupiter.

I used my Coast HP7R LED flashlight with a filter on it to paint the tree. Once I triggered the camera I stepped to the right to cast a side light on the tree. This type of lighting casts shadows which help define the subject’s features versus straight on lighting. You can see some of the shadows that the branches cast on the trunk. Light painting is half technique and half art. I prefer light painting that has more natural tones. Some people go way out and do some crazy light painting techniques.

Light Painting
Light Painting

This image was taken with my Canon EOS 5DS using my Canon EF 16-35mm f/4 Lens set on 16mm. The camera was set on Manual mode with the aperture set at f/4, shutter speed at 20 seconds and the ISO set at 5000. I used a tripod for stability. This is a single image processed in Lightroom and completed in Photoshop using Nik Color Efex Pro.

You can see my gallery for Joshua Tree NP by clicking here. Please use the section below to post your comments, questions or suggestions.

T. Kahler Photography
© 2017 T. Kahler Photography

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