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I drive past these largish mains water pipes almost every day and I had been thinking in my mind for quite some time that I'd like to have a go at light painting them in the dark to see what could be done. In my mind I was hoping for a sort of semi indistinctly appearing out of the darkness sort of look - at least that was what I was envisioning...

Whilst on a recent walk near my home I also found another set of exposed pipes which showed some promise (as they were surrounded and covered by trees which would block out nearby street lights and so should essentially be totally dark at night).

Since it thankfully finally stopped raining in Sydney over the weekend I thought I'd go out at night and give it a try.

It turned out at the first location that even at night the area was very well lit (too well lit) with a number of very bright street lights, cars headlights as they pass by, etc. However not to be deterred I setup a few compositions and stopped down to allow me time to walk through and paint with my LED headlamp torch.



I then moved on to the other location I'd found which was thankfully a lot darker and began again.



I tried a number of different compositions and light painting at both locations including shooting straight on, from an angle, etc and lighting from behind and from in front from both sides of the frame - which I think was probably more successful at the second location. This was a first attempt at this and I'm not sure I've done it any sort of justice yet - any feedback or suggestions gratefully accepted

Rodney
I think you are on to something special here....but have not yet nailed it. I'd go back and try painting it with a handheld spotlight, or try again with flash because there is a beautiful image there. You just need to get that lighting to do its magic.

I couldn't agree more with Matt K. I think you're on to something. We should start a new competition called. Making ordinary things around your neighbourhood look fantastic and see what people come up with.

This has loads of potential. I really like image one. The shadows on the ground take a little away from the shot, maybe you could minimise theme in post processing. Really good concept.
Ian

I do think that there's something special in image 1.

There's a complexity there, reduced by the conversion to mono, and it looks great.

Great stuff, both of them, but especially number 1. This inspires me to revisit a shot of a similar subject I took a while ago, and try some other processing on it.

Cheers
Steffen.

I quite like 1 as well, but on my monitor looks
a bit dark. You might need a more powerful
torch or longer exposure...

yeah really like the idea in the first. not liking the second much.
just a BTW question...why cant i see those images on tapatalk ??

Matt. K wrote:I think you are on to something special here....but have not yet nailed it. I'd go back and try painting it with a handheld spotlight, or try again with flash because there is a beautiful image there. You just need to get that lighting to do its magic.

My headlamp is fairly powerful (225 Lumens or something) - but yes the light isn't exactly what I had pictured in my mind - see below...

ian.bertram wrote:I couldn't agree more with Matt K. I think you're on to something. We should start a new competition called. Making ordinary things around your neighbourhood look fantastic and see what people come up with.
This has loads of potential. I really like image one. The shadows on the ground take a little away from the shot, maybe you could minimise theme in post processing. Really good concept

Thanks - that's kinda what I was thinking - trying to turn something normal and mundane (like a bunch of waterpipes and stuff) which people look at everyday and see if I could make it "different".

gstark wrote:I do think that there's something special in image 1. There's a complexity there, reduced by the conversion to mono, and it looks great.

Yep - mono was definitely the plan all along

Steffen wrote:Great stuff, both of them, but especially number 1. This inspires me to revisit a shot of a similar subject I took a while ago, and try some other processing on it

What! - I wasn't the first to think of this - I'm crushed

zafra52 wrote:I quite like 1 as well, but on my monitor looks a bit dark. You might need a more powerful torch or longer exposure...

I actually wanted more time to paint since I was running about a bit to do this (and I was contemplating putting on a ND or CPL to get longer since I was at 60secs @ f/16 already). I didn't go any longer since the ambient was so bright and I think the torch was bright enough. I know what you mean by it being dark and I kinda intentially made it this way - I chose one of the darker frames. I think what I needed more (at least for the vision I've got in my head) is a more focused beam - my mental vision is one where it's only partially lit and so bits of the structure of the pipes and valves are kind of coming out whereas other parts fade off into the darkness. Some of the darkness you see is also that I selective heavily burnt in (to black basically) bits I didn't want there (like some signs, grass and concrete and stuff below and to the left and foliage and stuff on the right).

Rooz wrote:yeah really like the idea in the first. not liking the second much. just a BTW question...why cant i see those images on tapatalk ??

That I'm not sure - I think there may have been a DNS issue earlier today tho since I had trouble reaching my server (I run my own dedicated server) (by DNS name but not via IP).

I can't see them on tapatalk either.