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Complex Light Painting Shoot

Complex Light Painting Shoot © Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 2

Complex Light Painting Shoot

In this lesson, we’re going to take an average scene and make it look amazing by creating a light painting. When creating a light painting, we start with a completely dark room and then use some type of light source (usually a flashlight) to paint light onto the subject while the camera’s shutter is open. The cam-era should be on a tripod to prevent any type of movement, which would cause the image to be blurry.

In the video example, the subjects I’m photographing are very small, so I’m going to use a small pen light flashlight. I recommend using an LED-style flashlight as they usually put out cleaner light than the older style of flashlights, which put out more of a yellow light.

I’m going to turn off the lights and use long exposures while painting light onto the subjects. In a previous lesson, we created a simple light painting by using a single exposure. In this lesson, we’re going to get more complex by combining multiple exposures. This is going to help us to create a more refined result because we can better control how the light falls in different areas of the scene.

In this example, the wheel well of the toy trailer may look good when lit from one angle, but the wood surface may look good when lit from a different angle. By creating multiple exposures, we can light each area individually, from the optimal angle, and then composite the results in Photoshop so that each area is perfectly lit. This lesson is going to cover the shooting part and there will be a separate les-son on how to make the composite in Photoshop.

By using the light painting technique, we can take a boring scene (top) and make it look amazing.


Setting Up the Camera (Timestamp 2:43)

In the video example, I am going to be cre-ating a rather difficult light painting. It’s difficult because the camera is positioned very close to the subject (about two feet). As you get closer and closer to the subject, the depth of field becomes more and more reduced. This makes it much more critical that the focus point is spot on. The focus point should be about one third of the way into the scene so I focused on the front end of the toy trailer. I also focused the camera manually so that I’d have the most preci-sion. You can get more precision by turning your camera’s live view on so that you can see the scene on the rear display and then zoom that view to 100% while manually focusing. (Note this feature is not available for mirrorless cameras.)

For the aperture setting, I wanted to use the lowest aperture number possible because I’d like to get the surface behind the subjects to be out of focus. This will create a visual contrast between the subject matter and what is visible behind it. I tested the aperture at different settings, looking for the lowest setting where both the robot and the trailer were perfectly in focus.

Next, I put the camera in Manual mode so that I could set the shutter speed to Bulb Mode. In Bulb Mode, the camera will continue taking the exposure for as long as the shutter is held down. I attach a cable release to the camera. This allows me to lock open the shutter by pushing a switch so I can walk away from the camera, paint the scene and then return and release the switch to close the shutter.

Some cameras also have apps that allow you to open and close the shutter re-motely. These can be nice because they often times allow you to review the pho-tos on your phone, right after you take them.

Above, you can see my camera setup is very close to the subject. This makes it more critical that the focus is spot on.


For your first light painting, I recommend you choose a subject that is much larger than the subjects I’m using in the video. The larger your subject matter is, the far-ther away you can keep your camera. The farther you keep the camera, the more depth of field you can get. An item like a chair, desk or car would be a better sub-ject for a beginner because it’s easy to get both the front and back to be sharp. A larger subject also makes it easier to precisely light the individual areas. With my subjects, I’m going to need to be VERY careful in lighting the different parts of the toys because they are so small and it will easy to get overspill with the flashlight.

The Light Source (8:47)

A lot of people assume that you need a super bright, high-tech flashlight for light painting. That’s not the case. In fact, a flashlight that’s too bright can be problem-atic because it will adequately light the scene with just one pass over the subject matter. This is not what we want. We want to be able to gradually paint the scene so that we can sculpt the light in a controlled, creative way.

This large light source lit the scene with one pass and the light is very bright and flat.

This small light source created a much more interesting light. This will provide more control of the light in this scene.


Another convenient gadget can help you to get the flash-light in hard-to-reach areas while painting a scene. For this, I use an extendable back scratcher. This sounds funny, but it works! The end of the back scratcher is shaped in such a way that it fits around the handle of a flashlight and I can use some tape to fix the flashlight in place.

It’s important to recognize that different flashlights put out different colors of light. Some may be more yellow or blue rather than white. If we use two flashlights with different colors of light to paint a single subject, it’s probably not going to look right. That’s something to consider when choosing your flashlights for a light painting.

White balance reference card To ensure the colors are going to be perfect, I like to use a white balance reference card before shooting the scene. I use a brand called WhiBal but you don’t need to use anything fancy like this. You could easily

just use a white (non-shiny) sheet of paper. I’ll place the white bal-ance card in the scene and light the card with the flashlight I plan on using. (The lights in the room should be off while doing this.) I’ll take an exposure like this so that I can use the card in the resulting image to set the white balance. When doing this, it’s important to make sure that the card is not

I will connect this extendable back scratcher to the handle of a flashlight. This will help me get the light into hard-to-reach areas.

A white balance reference card is placed in the scene and it will later be used to set the white balance of the image. This is the WhiBal brand.


blown out to solid white. We’ll need to be able to see some detail there. Before painting with each light source, I will take a shot with the white balance card us-ing that light source. Once the images are imported, I’ll use Lightroom’s White Balance Eyedropper to click on the card in each image. This will make it look like each light source was putting out white light.

Lighting Process (14:00)

I already mentioned that I set the shutter speed to Bulb Mode, which means the exposure length will be determined by how long I hold down the button. If you don’t have a cable release or other method for triggering your camera, then you can use 30-second exposures.

When lighting the subject, the different angles at which you point the light are going to deliver different results. You’re going to get the most boring light when you light your subject from the location where the camera is because this is not going to create any dimension in your scene.

On the left side, you can see the same scene lit with two light sources. One source put out yellow light and the other put out blue light. On the right side, you can see the results of both after the white balance card was used to correct the color.


That being said, I will take an image where I shine the light on the subject from the camera’s perspective because this image could potentially end up being useful in the final composite. You never know if your end result is going to be a little dark. If it IS dark in some areas, you could use this exposure to fill in areas in the end result.

When you light the subject from an angle and rake the light across the subject, you will start to see more of the textures and dimension of the object. I will move the flashlight around, looking for the most interesting angle of light. I’ll also ex-periment by moving the flashlight closer and farther from the subject. When the flashlight is close to the subject, the light will be harder, covering a smaller surface area. As the flashlight gets farther and farther from the subject, the light will get softer and softer.

I’ll start making exposures, painting the light from different distances, and then look at the resulting images on the back of the camera. If the image is too dark, I know I either need to get my flashlight closer to the subject OR I need to paint more light, using a longer exposure. It can actually be beneficial to use less light over a longer exposure because it allows me to take my time and be more precise.

Once I have a general feel for how long each exposure should be and how far away my light source should be, I’ll use those measures to paint the various parts of the subject[s] , creating a separate exposure for each object in the scene.

LEFT: The subjects were lit straight on, from the camera’s angle, and the flashlight was po-sitioned far away. This resulted in a scene with flat light that is very large and soft because of the distance of the flashlight. RIGHT: The subjects were lit by raking the light across the scene from an angle. The light was also much closer to the subjects. This resulted in a scene with more dimension and more focused light.


When I’m photographing something like this, I’m not going to photograph it from one single angle. I’ll figure out the angle at which each feature looks most interest-ing and create separate exposures for each feature. I’ll usually even photograph the various objects from several angles so that I have the choice of which expo-sure to use later, when making the composite.

Don’t let the flashlight block the camera’s view As you’re creating different ex-posures, know that your flashlight can be blatantly in the scene, as long as it’s

not blocking what you’re lighting and that it’s pointed away from the camera. As long as it’s not blocking the camera’s view of the subject, the flashlight (and your hand) will not be seen. That’s because you’re creating the exposure in total darkness and the only thing that will be visible is the object that the light is falling on.

I made several exposures, each time lighting from a different

angle in order to bring out the detail in various areas. On the far

right, you can see a screen shot from Photoshop’s Layers panel.

Each exposure was masked to reveal only the desired area.

You can see that the flashlight is blatantly in the scene, but it will not show up in the resulting exposure because it’s not blocking the camera’s view of the subject.


Flashlight on shiny subjects If part or all of the subject you’re lighting is shiny, it’s going to reflect the light source back to the camera. The size of the reflected light will be depend on the size of the light source. In the video ex-ample, I’m using a tiny light source, so the reflected light will be tiny as well. In the video example, you can see that the reflected light is showing up as a bright line in the image.

If I have a really shiny subject, I’m going to use a light source that is really large compared to that subject. An example would be an iPhone or an iPad with the screen displaying solid white. I would get the device as close to the subject as I can, and it’s ok if you can even see the light source in the shot because I can always mask it out later. When I do this, you’ll notice that the highlights on the subject are dramatically larger than when I used the flashlight.

Modifying the Light Source (23:24)

Create a Snoot for the Flashlight If you ever angle the edge of the flashlight so that the bulb is exposed to the camera, it’s going to appear as a white streak of extremely bright light. You can avoid this by creating a snoot for your light source so that the light is recessed within the snoot. The snoot will allow you to angle the flashlight to the side or even a little bit toward the camera and you still won’t be able to see the bulb.

To create the snoot, I’ll cut out a small rectangle of heavy paper or card stock. (Junk mail works great for this.) I will cover both sides of one half of the card with black

Above, you can see the difference between using a small and large light source on a shiny subject. The large light source is going to create much larger, softer highlights.


gaffers tape and then I’ll wrap the card around the end of the flashlight (with the tape side extending out) so that the bulb is re-cessed by about an inch or so. Then I’ll use more gaffers tape to adhere the snoot to the end of the flashlight.

Tone down harsh light If you find that the light coming out of your flash-light is too harsh, you can stuff a little piece of tis-sue or toilet paper inside the snoot. This will create a much softer, more dif-fused light.

If you angle the flashlight so the bulb is exposed to the camera (as you can see at left), you risk getting light streaks in the result (right).

Creating a snoot for the flashlight will prevent the bulb from be-ing exposed to the camera. This snoot was made from gaffers tape and cardstock.

Some tissue was placed inside the snoot to create a softer, less harsh light.


Use Cinefoil to create a mottled look Your flashlight is going to put out a round-shaped light by default. There may be times when you don’t want really consistent light on your subject. Instead, you may want it to look more mottled and painterly. You can achieve this by using a special kind of product called Cinefoil, which is essentially black tin foil. Rip off a piece of Cinefoil and wrap it around the end of your flashlight to form a snoot. Then, you can squeeze and shape the Cinefoil to create a different shape. This will cause the light to come out in a more irregular, mottled shape.

Summary (30:00)

When shooting a scene like this, I will light each object separately, trying to find the best angle of light to catch the three-dimensionality of the scene. I also cap-ture some shots with overall lighting on each object, where I shoot the light source straight on from the camera’s perspective. This is just a safeguard in case I need to fill in any areas while making the composite. When doing this, I will move the flashlight around during the exposure because this will create softer shadows. If I kept the light source in one place, the shadows would look too crisp.

You can make a snoot out of Cinefoil and then form the snoot into a distorted shape. This will put out a different, more creative shape of light.


I will set the camera to Manual mode and test the aperture settings, focusing on an area that’s one-third of the way into the scene. After taking an exposure, I will zoom up on the result and make sure both the near and far areas of the subject are sharp. This is especially important when the camera is very close to the sub-ject[s] because you will have a very limited depth of field.

Next, I’ll create some test exposures to figure out how long I need to paint light into the scene in order for it to look appropriately lit. I’ll take at least five or six test exposures, inspecting the results on the back of the camera each time in order to make sure I’m getting it right.

Finally, I’ll start my official light painting, creating separate exposures for each area. I’ll try to find the most creative angle from which to light each part of the scene. I’ll also use a white balance reference card for each light source that I use.

Here are some of the flashlights I use when creating light paintings.

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