PHOTOGRAPHY -- LIGHT PAINTING-- INSIDE AN ANTIQUE CLOCK

When I inherited my grandmother’s antique mantle clock a couple of years ago I opened the back and immediately knew I wanted to photograph its’ clock works. The clock is a Seth Thomas “Sucile” red adamantine, No. 765, mantle clock made between 1904 and 1913. It has a marvelous brass movement with a wonderfully funky gong mechanism that looks hand made! I put it aside not knowing how I wanted to photograph the interior of the clock. After some research, finding that it really didn’t have much value, I dismantled the left hand side and found a nice opening through which I could light its interior. So, this became a perfect “Light-Painting” subject!

All my other light painting subjects have needed LED flash lights with at least a 7-LED head and on some subjects I used a 24-LED array (a wand) in close and that was usually at 3200 ISO for 30 seconds @ f2.8. For this clock’s interior I didn’t have room for my larger flash lights—the back’s opening is only about 6 inches square—since the tripod mounted camera occupied most of that opening. So, I started my exposure test using my smallest LED flashlight with only a single LED.  It turned out to be more than adequate….

f20.0 @ 30 sec., ISO 800; Lens: 15mm Fisheye

In fact I had to keep lowering my ISO and stopping down because the metal clock work is so reflective. But that was a good thing because with my camera in so close I needed as much Depth-of-Field as I could get. And, since I was focusing at the minimum distance my lens would allow (on the gong's coil on the right) I needed the f20.0 for good depth-of-field.

In this image you can see my main lighting movements through the opening on the left. Here’s my light painting sequence….

Sequence 1

I gave the clock works about 15 seconds through that opening on the left.  Then moving to the right side….

Sequence 2

I’m now real close to the camera putting light on the gong mechanism for about 7 seconds.  Next I aimed under the camera….

Sequence 3

For the remaining 8 seconds I put some light on the old feather that I found inside the clock. 

Here is the final image with retouching….

Final Image

After a lot of interior touch-up and cropping the image to a square I closed-up the left side opening by burning-in and vignetting the image. I don’t know which image I like best—either the first version in this blog or this last one.  

Anybody out there have an opinion?  Let me know…’til next week with something new.

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site:  http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

LIGHT PAINTING A STILL LIFE: A KNIFE IN THE STUDIO; PART 2

Last week’s blog was about how I light painted two black pistols. That was challenging, but after I narrowed the light’s angle it was surprisingly easy because that modification gave me the precision needed to realize the old studio lighting maxim: “put light where you want it and don’t put light where you don’t want it”!

In this studio light paining blog I picked something more difficult—a very reflective knife. It’s a polished, stainless steel, dive knife that I paired with a vintage, stainless steel, Casio diver’s watch. To complete the set-up and enhance the dive theme I added a bunch of sea shells and a piece of white coral. Yeah, it’s complicated and a bit busy and after messing with the composition of all these elements I decided that the knife should be the center of interest because of its size and the powerful color of its handle. I had intended to make the watch the center of interest until I saw that it didn’t have the impact to lead in this set.

Here’s the final edited image….

f16.0 @ 30 sec., ISO 125; Lens @ 200mm

How I got the shot:

Lighting: In Part 1 I told you that I had to make a snoot (made of Cinefoil) for my flashlight to reduce the beam size for more accurate placement of highlights on my subjects. Well, because my subjects here are smaller and with all those tiny sea shells needing precise lighting I reduced the size of my snoot’s opening to about pencil size.

Painting:  You may be asking, “How did he get the blade of that knife without reflections from the flashlight?” that was my intent from the start—I wanted it to look almost black because I wanted the inscription on that, chrome like, polished blade to really stand out. 

So, when painting I swept my flashlight over the top edges of my set pieces (especially on the knife’s handle) without creating any forward angle that would front light the blade. Then I swept the light from each side working on all those shells.

Eliminating blade reflection:  You’ve probably heard the term, “angle of incidence equals angle of reflectance”, this just means that if the angle of your light matches your angle of observation you will see a reflection.

Family of Angles:  This refers to the Angles of view from a light source that a reflective surface will direct light back into the lens. For a flat surface the family of angles are the same as the lens’ angle of view—but coming back toward the camera.

The Solution:  Change your angle of view (lens focal length) so that the cone of light misses the lens.  So, I used a longer focal length (200mm) from a greater distance to reduce the family of angles (the cone of light). Now that the light is outside the family of angels light will not reflect back into the lens, thus eliminating direct reflections.

And that give me my dark blade!

The Background:  With so many more elements to paint I used up my 30 seconds on my subjects, so I had to do a separate exposure for the background.

f16.0 @ 30 se.c, ISO 125; Lens @ 200mm

Note on Color:  One of the problems when painting with an LED flashlight is that the LED light quality (its color temperature) can vary wildly between manufacturers. This is called its CRI—Color Rendering Index—which ideally should be 100 or 5500°K, the color temperature of daylight. Most LED flashlights are not even close to a CRI of 100 (I often saw a very blue shift in color in my painted set-ups using cheap LED flashlights) and most sellers or manufacturers won’t even tell you in the specs anything about its CRI! When I did find some LED flashlights with color temperatures at 5500°K (CRI100) they were really expensive ($100 to $350) and there was little variety in configuration compared to the cheap LED lights—such as multi-LED wands and such.

My Solution for Color: I simply started doing a custom white balance for each LED light. You just light paint a grey card exactly the same as painting your subject (same exposure) and you’re done.

That’s it for this week.  On to something new for next week… “Til then…

If you would like to check out the video I did on Light Painting go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPng2IwX6Zg&t=20s

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training Site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client Site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

LIGHT PAINTING A STILL LIFE; GUNS IN THE STUDIO; PART 1

With over 30 years in the photography business it’s still sobering to discover that there are still things in this art/science to learn.

It’s interesting that this discovery seems to happen the most in studio photography—where we have control of ALL the variables. This just means that there are more things for us to screw-up on when we choose among the myriad of decisions that go into the photography of any subject! Just some of those decisions include: size of the light(s), type of lights, placement relative to subject and to each other, how to light the background, how to control each light source—volumes have been written about just these variables.

So, with decades of experience, education from some of the legends in photography, having earned my P.P.A. (Professional Photographers of America)  Masters and Craftsman’s degrees for International print competitions and teaching, I had approached the incredibly simple concept of light painting as beneath my involvement.  After all this experience and training I’m about to abandon my huge multi-thousand dollar investment in studio equipment….for a flashlight! 

The concept of light painting is so simple and yet like most art it’s all in the execution.  I’m reminded of what one sage photographer wrote decades ago…”it’s simple, you just put light where you want it and don’t put light where you don’t want it.” Simple!

So, here’s my second attempt at light painting….

f16.0 @ 30sec., ISO 125; Lens @ 168mm

Making it even harder this time I chose Two Black Pistols! Hey, it’s more interesting compositionally with two guns and by using two I can show both sides at the same time.

Even though the lighting is literally in-my-hands, now, all the standard lighting rules still apply, to wit:

• Black objects (just like glass objects) are defined by their specular highlights.
• Those specular highlights are created with the light source(s) striking the subject from the top and/or the sides—the light source never comes from camera position (that would create flat light).

What is very different about light painting is the precision that can be obtained in putting light exactly where you want it.  Because we mostly use large light sources in studio flash photography especially in portraiture—pin point precision is not needed.

When painting these guns I found that my little LED flashlight’s beam was too large and I over lit the muslin material around the gun in front. I carefully tried to just paint the gun.

Here is the set-up and my lighting solution….

The set-up

I did two things….I reduced the size of my beam (I made a snoot out of good-‘ol Cinefoil) and I brought the flashlight in closer to my subjects.

I’m happy with the final result and I did it all within my 30 second exposure (including the background).

In Part 2 I’ll continue with a more difficult subject set-up using a knife and some small support objects.

’Til next week….

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

LIGHT PAINTING vs. STUDIO FLASH

Having just done a video on Dramatic Studio Lighting: Tools and Guns, I decided to try and compare light painting the exact same subjects!  I approached this little demonstration with some anxiety because with 30+ years experience in studio flash photography I’m used to being in strict control of exactly where each light is going and its measurable amount. I really like that with my professional studio flashes each has a modeling light that allows me to see what each hight is doing. It’s hard to give up that kind of control especially for an artistic perfectionist!

To add to my anxiety—I’d never done light painting in the studio before and I’ve set up a rather complex lighting challenge with this collection of small objects surrounding one large object all very close together. So, let the demonstration begin…and let me know, once you’ve seen the results, which do YOU think is better, light painting or studio flash and why?

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site:  http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com