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Our evening of light painting at Forresters beach on the NSW Central Coast culminated in the arrival of our beautiful model Elyse all dressed an elaborate wedding gown.

Steel wool, orbs, EL wire, cold cathodes, coloured LED's & lasers all armed and ready. A model in a flowing white wedding dress, the ocean surging in and burning molten metal flying everywhere - what could go wrong....

Glowing Bride to Be


This one a little closer and a more central composition with just one whirling dirvish directly behind and the addition of some EL wire groundwork

Trapped


and finally something a lot more simple - I lit our bride just using a blue LED torch and then some "angel wings" were added at the back using a blue cold cathode tube

Blue Angel

I like the first, but there are so many things that could have gone wrong in creating that image....didn't you hear about that bride that got drowned by her dress in the US?

The last image would be stronger if she was not painted blue, just using the cold cathode to paint the wings and lighting her normally. I don't like the second image, the EL wire does not add anything and looks out of place

Mmm...

High tech light painting --- tick
Model shoot --- tick
Wedding dress by the beach --- tick
Combine all of the above --- NOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

With some more considered thought to composition and subject I think there's some potential.
I'd like to explore a possible shoot if your interested.

First off, i reckon it's a pretty cool concept, albeit just because it's a wedding dress, girl and a bunch of sparks..but cool nonetheless.

I think you will get varied feedback, as you have probably noticed across the mediums, ie gplus they seem to love it but here it may be a bit different.. anyway my thoughts are (and i post them here since critique seems a bit outta place on gplus):

first thought: yeah thats cool
second thougth and after looking at it: the composition looks like your all lined up next to each other and this kinda shows, i think the guys on the right of you would have had a better composition, eye contact for this, i think, is key, there is little reason for the model to be looking out of the frame, unless there is something (like a sunset for eg.) there to connect her.

Given the large number of people involved it is hard to achieve your desired composition and eye contact and to be honest this contributed to me not wanting to be involved, you probably know my thoughts one this, 3 people is kinda the best number, it gives enough hands to do the shit but also means you still have somewhat ample room to compose and setup tripods.

The first image would have gone from 'yeah cool' to 'shit sweet as bro' if she had direct eye contact with the camera, also the uniformity of the wool circles would have improved it and the removal of the one directly behind the model, its not adding anything.
Looking at it further, if you had placed the model on the left side of the frame and had her looking into the frame, that may have worked, but having her on the right side and looking out of the frame..nope.

same comments for the second, eye contact is need, the snooted light is cool and the EL adds to it, with the EL wire, you musta had a sore back at that stage since I have seen better from you needs to be more of a sea with a few less defined trails, IMO. I reckon really rip it up and cover that rock so it looks like electrified pedestal..!!!!

with the last, a pop with the flash on the face to give her some colour would have made it a stronger image.

I think every time you mess with this stuff you get a little smarter....you learn a little more, you get creative, you see possibilities. Whilst none of these fire me up, I see some real possibilities in the cool blue swirls in the second image.....and making the model more of the main subject. She needs to be better lighted....perhaps reclining, and maybe dressed in something more reflective like sequins that will pick up the colour. She needs to be holding flowers or sparklers or something. Looks like fun!

I prefer the second because the bride is at the centre.
I find circles at both sides of the bride distracting; while
the 3rd is a bit too dark and the bride seems to be in the
middle instead of the focus of attention.

aim54x wrote:I like the first, but there are so many things that could have gone wrong in creating that image....didn't you hear about that bride that got drowned by her dress in the US? The last image would be stronger if she was not painted blue, just using the cold cathode to paint the wings and lighting her normally. I don't like the second image, the EL wire does not add anything and looks out of place

Thanks Cam - appreciate the candid comments
Note that we were pretty careful with the shot - it looks much worse than it was in reality - the wool spin was done in the same plane as the model so went sideways instead of towards her and was actually quite a long way behind her (it looks much closer in the image than it was in reality) - the guy doing the spinning directly behind her in both shots is her fiance

Mj wrote:With some more considered thought to composition and subject I think there's some potential. I'd like to explore a possible shoot if your interested.

I'm sure a few of us would be Mj - thanks
I should note that I actually quite like the first shot myself

Matt. K wrote:I think every time you mess with this stuff you get a little smarter....you learn a little more, you get creative, you see possibilities. Whilst none of these fire me up, I see some real possibilities in the cool blue swirls in the second image.....and making the model more of the main subject. She needs to be better lighted....perhaps reclining, and maybe dressed in something more reflective like sequins that will pick up the colour. She needs to be holding flowers or sparklers or something. Looks like fun!

Thanks Matt - it was a bit of fun after all

zafra52 wrote:I prefer the second because the bride is at the centre. I find circles at both sides of the bride distracting; while the 3rd is a bit too dark and the bride seems to be in the
middle instead of the focus of attention.

Cheers Zafra - appreciate the comments

biggerry wrote:First off, i reckon it's a pretty cool concept, albeit just because it's a wedding dress, girl and a bunch of sparks..but cool nonetheless.

I think you will get varied feedback, as you have probably noticed across the mediums, ie gplus they seem to love it but here it may be a bit different.. anyway my thoughts are (and i post them here since critique seems a bit outta place on gplus):

first thought: yeah thats cool
second thougth and after looking at it: the composition looks like your all lined up next to each other and this kinda shows, i think the guys on the right of you would have had a better composition, eye contact for this, i think, is key, there is little reason for the model to be looking out of the frame, unless there is something (like a sunset for eg.) there to connect her.

Given the large number of people involved it is hard to achieve your desired composition and eye contact and to be honest this contributed to me not wanting to be involved, you probably know my thoughts one this, 3 people is kinda the best number, it gives enough hands to do the shit but also means you still have somewhat ample room to compose and setup tripods.

The first image would have gone from 'yeah cool' to 'shit sweet as bro' if she had direct eye contact with the camera, also the uniformity of the wool circles would have improved it and the removal of the one directly behind the model, its not adding anything.
Looking at it further, if you had placed the model on the left side of the frame and had her looking into the frame, that may have worked, but having her on the right side and looking out of the frame..nope.

same comments for the second, eye contact is need, the snooted light is cool and the EL adds to it, with the EL wire, you musta had a sore back at that stage since I have seen better from you needs to be more of a sea with a few less defined trails, IMO. I reckon really rip it up and cover that rock so it looks like electrified pedestal..!!!!

with the last, a pop with the flash on the face to give her some colour would have made it a stronger image.

Thanks Gerry for your extensive and well though out feedback/critique/suggestions

I agree gplus is not really conducive to critique - I keep having to send private posts to people when I want to give any real meaningful critique - gplus is much more like flickr in that regard - people generally just say good things unless you really know the person. That said I find the +1's and reshares a semi useful gauge of general appeal of an image (and for that I certainly don't seem to be able to pick what will or won't be mass popular - I guess it's the old what a photographer might like vs the general population - very different tastes)

You picked it - I was towards the left of the huge row of tripods (about 15 shooters) and as you say thats far too many - still like many of these things it's more about being a social experience and learning fun rather than any serious endevour - especially when you have a number of people simultaneously driving creative input . Personally with my framing (and I was at the spot I was because there's a large rock in the water directly behind her which you can't really see in my frame but the guy doing the spin in the first shot is standing on it and the guy with the flash was trying to light it with the flash as well ) I wanted the key light on the left and model looking left but someone else was doing that (plus there was a tall rock on the right for the guy with the flash to stand on)

You're lucky I didn't post any of the other frames where they added other useless sh*t like LED orbs with steel wool in the one frame with her

With the last I didn't want flash because I wanted her just lit blue (if I'd had my flash with blue gel I'd have been happier) - it's also quite soft (and has closed eyes) because of that too unfortunately - by this stage she was getting very cold so we did two quick takes and ended the evening and went to dinner

Remorhaz wrote:about 15 shooters

eek... no wonder she turned blue in the end !!!

Impossible to sort out a good composition and get the best from a model under those conditions... but as long as fun was had.
A better ratio would be one or two togs and 6 or so suppporting the lighting, 1 or 2 on model prep etc...
and a day or so of storyboarding to come in with a plan to kick off from.

I would consider looking at possible cosplay themes... eg... Tron type scifi or Harry Potter type fantasy... that might better suit a lightpaint concept.