Photography Tutorial | Light Painting

Several months ago Richard wrote a Photoshop tutorial on How to Create Light Effects. I’m not a Photoshop master like Richard, and every time I look at that article, I think about creating light effects (called light painting) with my camera.

Today I found the best tutorial I’ve seen on this type of photography. If you are unfamiliar with light painting, I’ll describe it like this: When you are outside at night, and you have a light source (flashlight, lighter, sparkler, etc…) and you move it around, you can see the lines that the light creates. Can you imagine what I’m talking about? Have you ever written your name in the air with a sparkler? It is interesting how clearly we can see that at night.

Light painting is the art of capturing those lines in photos and creating a look very similar to the Photoshop method that Richard wrote about. This is a very stunning and captivating look that you can use to create some gorgeous photographs.

This video tutorial is fantastic. It won the viewer’s choice award in the mindbites.com “spread the craft” video contest. I’ve also included some fabulous light painting photos below for your inspiration. Enjoy!