Tag: tools
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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…
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Tutorial: Milky water and Misty Forests
We spent the weekend in Paso Robles, deep in the heart of the ‘other’ grape growing place in California. In addition to all the fine wines, there’s art everywhere, some of it even quite nice. The pictures that captured our attention was a series of paintings that depicted landscapes as viewed through thick fog. We…
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Tutorial: Adding the Grime
I needed a new photo for my LinkedIn profile and wanted something that shows maturity but not age. Here’s how I added the grime to a standard photo to get the desired results. You’ll recall that a while back I built a continuous light ring for my Pretty Ugly People study: I used that on…
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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…
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Fire Painting Class 101
I am delighted to announce that the Star Circle Academy was stupid enough to let me co-host another ‘light painting with fire’ event with Eric. We spent Friday night on the beach with a brace of fire lovers burning things and capturing the results in full color glory. Light painting is cool. Painting with fire…
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Tutorial: Flares and Fake Scars
For the final part of this tutorial series, we turn to the sexy but scarred leg of my filthy assistant (look it up) being lit by a road flare. You’ve obviously seen the video, the tutorial on fire breathing and the one on hairspray burning. This is the end of the road, I’m not going…
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Tutorial: Bringing the Storm
Today’s lesson is in adding dark storm clouds to a beautiful clear sky, without doing all that complicated selection nonsense. There’s always a debate raging amongst photographers about how much you’re “allowed” to change an image and still call it a photograph. Clearly studio model shots that are then composited on to images of urban…
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Tutorial: Making an Antelope Goddess (multiplicity tutorial)
The image of my multi-armed wife worshiping in Lower Antelope Canyon generated more conversation and ‘likes’ than anything I’ve done on Facebook ever. It was mostly ignored on Flickr, and has generated reasonable traffic here, so I decided to show you how to make one of your own. First, find an 8 armed friend… Plan…
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Tutorial: Light Painting Tools
People stop me in the streets and ask ‘Aren’t you that guy that does those things?’ Once the confusion passes it normally, fortunately, turns out they’re talking about light painting, and the next question they ask is ‘How?’ The exact technique for each picture will be revealed as and when this blog progresses, but for…
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Slinging Fire in the Fog
The above photo is not mine. It was taken by May Wong. She kindly allowed me to showcase it here, I’ll explain why in a mo. Here’s her Facebook page. For a while now Eric and I have talked about teaching a light painting class, and while nothing has come of it, we have used…
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Taking Aim
As you’ll find out if you stick around, I’m terrible at flash photography. That said, I’m trying hard and learning a lot. The above photo has a large strobe in front and to the left of the image to give Deanna the front light see needs, but the scene is mostly lit by the light…