I often spend a night out in the dark shooting an idea that develops over a few attempts. When I feel I've nailed a shot, the previous attempts leading up to the final result can be neglected, never to see the light of day!
Posting to the Hive has made me look over older images and in reviewing thousands of images, I keep on finding perfectly good photographs which are on the hard drive scrap heap!
This is a collection of scrapped, rejected images which somehow managed to avoid deletion. And thank goodness they did, because I quite like the results!
The Rejected Circle of OCD
Shot in our favourite lime kiln in Derbyshire, the circle in the image made with a Denis Smith Ball of Light Tool was cut off top and bottom. I re-shot this with the circle fully in the frame but this version looks fine to me!
Up on Stanage Edge with Tei
From a great night out in the dark with Tei Pelant, a very civil engineer from the Netherlands. Tei climbed up to the top of Stanage which was no mean feat and posed with the uber heavy LED Lenser X21r2 flashlight with it's focusable beam. I rejected this maybe because it was shot with a continuous light source over about 10 seconds and keeping perfectly still for that long is damn near impossible!
Camera rotation in the lime kiln
I cannot for the life of me remember why I rejected this shot. I think it may be down to the top left of the frame being a little blurry but the colours look better to me now that the shot I thought I'd nailed!
This is a camera rotation image where the camera is rotated on it's lens axis four ways and is shot in one photographic exposure.
A rare sighting
This is the lesser spotted and rare @fadetoblack having a moment up on Baslow Edge in the Peak District. We seem to have got lucky with the sunset here whilst waiting for the darkness to fall. Not sure why I rejected this but maybe because it's not a lightpainting image....
The Three Dimensional Reject
Another shot inexplicably overlooked in favour of another shot on the same evening. This is a three way camera rotation image using a laser pen, a flashgun with a red gel, all shot in one photographic exposure.
Rejected Laser
And in the same folder as the above image, I found this slightly more minimalist version. This must have been a test shot but it stands up by itself!
Cheating the Needle
In lightpainting circles it's customary to shoot everything in one photographic exposure. So I like to break a rule and on this night I tried a composite experiment. I took along an iPad and shot a series of images with lighting in various positions around the frame. I added each image as I went to the iPad and built up the layers. If there was a spot in the image without lighting, I'd shoot another image and light the relevant part and add to the main file on the iPad.
I rejected this I think because it looks unrealistic. The technique I used is similar to that used by the Olympus composite mode but I was shooting with a Sony. It was a worthwhile experiment and I immediately resorted back to shooting in one exposure again!
Rejecting Goldirocks
This was a test shot in Chee Tor Tunnel in the Peak District. The tunnel used to be a main railway route through Derbyshire and now functions as a walking and cycle route. It's also perfect for large scale lighting such as this with a wierd looking yellow / green gel. Added @fadetoblack in the frame for the sense of scale.
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.
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Lightpainting is a photographic technique in which exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source while taking a long exposure photograph, either to illuminate a subject or to shine a point of light directly at the camera, or by moving the camera itself during exposure. Nothing is added or removed in post processing.
If you would like to see more lightpainting please give the Lightpainters United Community a follow and you will be introduced into the illuminating world of light painting!
If you want to see more examples of lightpainting, feel free to check out these guys:
Mafu Fuma | Oddballgraphics | FadetoBlack | DAWN | Mart Barras | Stefan Stepke | Nikolay Trebukhin | Lee Todd | Stabeu Light | Maxime Pateau | Stephen Sampson | lightandlense | Neil Rushby | L.A.C.E.
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Rejects most people could only dream of. Great set fella.
Haha good point, one person's scrap, another person's treasure!
Great set mate.