First attempt at light painting

This didn’t start out as a light painting shoot. My friend Andrew wanted to get some long exposure shots of planes taking off so we ventured down to the airport near sunset. Before the sun went down, we took a few shots at Iona Beach.

The beach wasn’t particularly interesting, so as the sun was going down I decided to try out the variable ND filter I purchased.  First time I have ever used an ND filters, but it was a day of firsts so why not.  Here are a couple of shots, looks like it could be fun and the effect can’t be duplicated any other way.

And here is Andrew setting up for a sunset shot.

The sun finally set so we found a spot where we could see the runway and decided to shoot planes on the way in and out of the airport.  There were not a lot of flights and we couldn’t get a decent photo.  Out of the photos I took, this was the best one and it is average at best.

We quickly got bored, and decided to try some light painting.  Started with waving the flashlights around.

Then we noticed the back hoe, so we decided to try some light painting on that.  The idea was to trace the bucket and tracks with brighter light and fill in the rest.  For a first attempt, somewhat successful.

And better after we stumbled on some better camera settings.

Found a bulldozer nearby as well.

And finally my truck before we wrapped up for the night.

Finally, I asked Andrew to paint on some horns, he must of thought I said “propeller”.  They sound so similar I can see where he got mixed up.

So I had to try it myself