The Reader | May 10, 2013 | 9:47 pm | Sky Mountain Lodge, ID | f/7.1 | 10.0 | Canon EOS Rebel T3
Light painting is tricky, because it’s hard to know how your image will turn out. Though I was initially disappointed with this piece, I realized that it looked like the scene was sitting near a window, illuminated by moonlight filtering through tree leaves. Still, it was pretty dark and blurry, so in Camera Raw I increased the clarity, exposure, vibrancy and saturation.
Apothecary | May 10, 213 | 10:05 pm | Sky Mountain Lodge, ID | f/7.1 | 10.0 | Canon EOS Rebel T3
These little vials were the first thing I wanted to shoot when I saw them arranged with the other light painting scenes. I have a thing for bottles and colored liquids. The snoot on my flashlight was sloppy so I had a really hard time controlling the light. I had to do quite a bit of editing in Camera Raw to reign in the focus. I had way too much light, so I reduced the exposure, whites, and highlights, and boosted the shadows, contrast, vibrancy, and saturation. Finally, I reduced the clarity and added a vignette to soften the whole image.
Yearbooks | May 09, 2013 | 10:29pm | Sky Mountain Lodge, ID | f/11.0 | 30.0 | Canon EOS T3
This was a difficult scene to arrange and paint. I didn’t really know what to do with all of the elements, particularly the strange tiles, but I’m satisfied with the somewhat pell-mell result. I love journals, and if I’d had time, I’m sure I’d have loved to look through these old books. I didn’t do any edits.
Soda Pop | May 09, 2013 | 10:19pm | Sky Mountain Lodge, ID | f/11.0 | 30.0 | Canon EOS Rebel T3
Remember what I said about that “thing” I have for bottles and colored liquids? That doesn’t quite extend to sodas. Still, I loved the colors of these classic pops and the way they lit up when I shined my light through them. I wasn’t very careful about the angle of my tripod so I had to tilt the image in Photoshop and then crop it down. I used content-aware fill to eliminate a distracting reflection from my flashlight on the red soda.
Heirlooms | May 10, 2013 | 11:09pm | Sky Mountain Lodge | f/– | 25.0 | Canon EOS 60D
My last tabletop light painting for the excursion had to be a macro shot, so I borrowed a classmate’s Canon EOS 60D and his macro lens and dialed in on this tiny scene of opulent jewelry. I had to really squish down the snoot on my flashlight to keep from flooding the whole scene, and I only dared keep the light on for about 10 seconds. My resulting photo was way too dark, so I had to take it into Camera Raw and boost the vibrance and saturation significantly. With an adjustment brush I increased the saturation, exposure, and sharpness on the facets of the jewels to bring them out even more.