Night Photography Tips: How to Create a Light Painting

Learn to master the fun photography technique and shoot your own artistic light drawings with this step-by-step guide

Looking for new ways to experiment with your night photography skills? In this article, UK-based photographer and educator, Debbie Castro (@debbiecastrow) shares her step-by-step tips for creating your own light painting photography.

Light painting is a fun way to explore and actually see how well you know your camera's manual mode. Practicing light painting or night photography really helps you understand that photography is all about the light and how you let it in.

If you've done my course, Introduction to Digital Photography in Manual Mode, you'll have learned the fundamentals of the exposure triangle (aperture, shutter speed, and ISO). These are the basic skills you'll need to start practicing light painting.

Ready to explore your skills? Try this out as a little test...

What is light painting?

An artistic technique in which you move a light source while taking a long exposure photograph, light painting has actually been used since the 1880s.

Famously in 1935, Man Ray created a series called Space Writing. He was the first known art photographer to use the technique by making self-portraits with a penlight in which he also inscribed his name in cursive script in the space between him and the camera.

Other exciting examples of light painting artists are Pablo Picasso and Gjon Milli (who introduced Picasso to the technique).

Today you can see innovative artists using light painting to create very elaborate scenes with colors etc. So, how do you do it?

What you'll need for light painting

The basics are:

- A tripod.

- A camera with manual mode self-timer mode, cable release, or another way to release the shutter.

- A light source, e.g. LED Lights, mobile phone lights, flashlights, lasers, candles, night lights, glow sticks.

- A relatively wide-angle lens (I used 35mm on manual focus).

- If your shutter speed only goes to thirty seconds you need to use Bulb mode.

Step 1: Program your camera settings

Set your ISO to 100 and the aperture at 22... Now, here comes the fun part: selecting the shutter speed to let in the light.

You will need to play around with your shutter speed, as this will depend on whether there is ambient light and how long it takes you to draw your image.

Step 2: Tripod and focal length

Set up your tripod and get the composition you want by changing the focal length.

Step 3: Focus

To focus your camera, use manual focus if there is still daylight—if you are indoors turn on the room's lights.

If you are in a pitch-black space, you will need to shine a torch or light on something in the same plane to focus on, you can do this in autofocus and then flip your lens to manual.

When you have focused with autofocus and changed to manual focus, the focus will stay in the same place as long as the camera or focal length doesn't move or change distance.

You'll then need to turn off the lights again before you start shooting.

Step 4: Decide what you want to draw...

Everything has to be mirrored, so it can be tricky and will require you to play around with the shutter speed as you go. Here's an example of how I created my "Domestika" light painting, with a few tips along the way:

Image one: ISO 100, Aperture 22, and a 1.0-second shutter speed

First, I tried using a one-second shutter speed, this wasn't long enough for me to create what I wanted to.

Image two: ISO 100, Aperture 22, and 2.5-second shutter speed

Image three: ISO 100, Aperture 22, and five-second shutter speed

Image four: ISO 100, Aperture 22, and ten-second shutter speed

Here, there is also a little bit of ambient light coming in, and I am not turning off the light from the torch in between each letter.

Image five: ISO 100, Aperture 22, and 25-second shutter speed

I still need to leave myself more time to be able to write "Domestika" in full and make the focal length wider. My "S" is also not mirrored so I needed to practice this!

Image six: ISO 100, Aperture 22, and 30-second shutter speed

You can see my hand making movements as I am holding my hand a little longer in the position. Wearing black gloves and dark clothes help with this, or you can edit in post-production if you want it super clean.

Now it's your turn! I hope this post helps you experiment with your exposure and to take your own light photography.

This blog post was written by Debbie Castro, a photographer, and educator based in the UK. She specializes in conceptual documentary photography and has exhibited her work in New York City, London, and photo festivals in her native Ireland. Currently, Debbie curates shows for the London Institute of Photography, coordinates photography classes, and mentors students from around the world. In her Domestika course, Introduction to Digital Photography in Manual Mode, she teaches her tricks for taking incredible images that tell original stories.

You may also like:

- Top Tips for Mastering Night Photography
- Tips and Tricks: How to Take Haunting Photos
- 6 Free Tutorials to Learn Essential Photography Skills in 20 Minutes
- Color Theory in Photography, a course by Yaopey Yong