Category: Night Photo

  • Tutorial: Capturing The Lunar Eclipse

    Tutorial: Capturing The Lunar Eclipse

    Buy this print here. We’re honored, thank you. The above image, while not exactly viral, has netted 5000 views in 2 days. That’s a record for us here at ScaresMe. So, to repay your kindness, we thought we’d document how we processed the image. That way, when the next one occurs (September 28th 2015) you…

  • Review: Nikon D750 can see in the dark

    Review: Nikon D750 can see in the dark

    Firstly, yes we know this is a terrible photo. It’s not supposed to be the best Milkyway you’ve ever seen. It was taken as a test shot for the new Nikon D750. Let’s start by talking about what you know about the Milkway. We’re guessing there’s 3 basic things. Firstly, its hard to spot with the…

  • Yosemite Elves and Sprites (light painting in the forest)

    Yosemite Elves and Sprites (light painting in the forest)

    As you saw in our last post, we recently visited Yosemite. We did this in part to capture the stars but also to hunt down the mythical forest-dwellers that spin light in to art. Without comment, here’s 4 of their attempts. A tutorial might follow. Depends how they’re feeling.

  • “The Best Damn Vernal Falls Photo In The World”

    “The Best Damn Vernal Falls Photo In The World”

    There’s quotes around the title. That means someone said it. That means it’s true. Ego much? 🙂 This time of the year there’s very little water in Yosemite National Park. The snows have not yet settled. Last year’s Winter was mild. Everything is as dry as a bone. And of course, it spent the summer…

  • Burning Jeep and the Milky Way at Crater Lake

    Burning Jeep and the Milky Way at Crater Lake

    Here’s our crazy idea. Let’s take a picture that’s never before been done. We’ll start with photographing the entire visible Milky Way, from the bit where it hits the Earth in the south, arcing all the way over to the bit where it hits the Earth in the north (bloody great example here ) .…

  • Burning at the night garden

    Burning at the night garden

    Our friends at the Star Circle Academy were kind enough to let us play with fire again. The trip to the beach was a hoot, as 15 or so new friends learned how to burn and spin steel wool & magnesium, how to use light painting to plant a night garden, and generally improved their…

  • One Night Of Good Carma

    One Night Of Good Carma

    CARMA is the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy. Bet you’re pleased you now know that! We were under the impression that you could see it from the side of highway 395, south of Bishop CA, and north of Big Pine. Our plan was that we’d jump a fence and spend a night avoiding…

  • The next generation of light painting

    The next generation of light painting

    We’ve never done this before, but here goes. All the pictures and links you’re about to see belong to someone else. That someone is Darren Pearson, known on Flickr as DariusTwin. Now where we build tools that make light patterns, and our  new friend Stuart makes pictures appear from nowhere in a studio, Darren makes…

  • Failed: Attempt at ‘odd’ lighted balloon painting

    Failed: Attempt at ‘odd’ lighted balloon painting

    A friend recently showed me a picture of orbs glowing gently in the night forest. After some time, I figured out I could recreate the scene by placing glow-sticks inside inflated balloons. I think the idea is sound but this picture is appaling. The leassons here are that you need LOTS more balloons, you need…

  • Lady Of Light

    Lady Of Light

    One of the nice things about light painting is that as long as you’re not a purest (a straight from the camera kinda guy) you get all sorts of options in post processing that are often surprising. I’ve been working on some new light painting tools. I thought they were done and so took them…

  • Tutorial: spinning, burning, layers, blending, masking and textures

    Tutorial: spinning, burning, layers, blending, masking and textures

    This tutorial is the whole enchilada. We cover everything from the tools you need to spin wire / steel wool, the camera settings you need to capture the image, and then all the Photoshop stuff required to make the image memorable: layers, blending modes, transparency, masking, and multiple textures. It’s a tad long at 7…

  • Tutorial: Painting With Fire Video

    Tutorial: Painting With Fire Video

    I get asked all the time to show how I make fire pictures. Well thanks to the amazing directorial and camera skills of my lovely wife, I here present a brief look at fire blowing, throwing, and spinning. We use road flares, steel / wire wool, magnesium, hairspray and corn flour. Epic is probably the…