Light Painting Brushes turned 10 years old on October 1, 2024 and to celebrate Jason Rinehart surprised me with this video where he reached out to people in our Light Painting Community to share a bit about how our work and LPB has impacted them. Thank you to Rinehart for putting this together, it feels so good to hear the reach our work and LPB has had over the last decade in this video. A very special Thank you to Carolina Ortiz Martinez, Johnny Griffin and Jason Rinehart these special humans are the glue that makes LPB what it is. I also want to say thank you to everyone that took the time to send Rinehart a video for this. Thank you Katrina Brown, Rob D’Angelo, Jess Cruger, Laura DelPrato, Ruben Martinez, Duncan MacKay, Russell Klimas, Dmitrij Dimek, Christina Marie, Stephen Knight, Chris Bauer, Kashishimoto Howard, Ian Greenwood, Andrea Boyle, Paul Burns, Johnny Dickerson, Erin Simmons, August Burns, Angie Rinehart, Denver, Jazmyn and Braelyn Rinehart. This video means more to me than anyone will ever really know. I also want to say thank you to my family, friends, models and everyone that has been supportive of my mission to connect people and bring more light to this world! I am so grateful for EVERYONE that has made LPB possible and our Light Painting Community! Hope to see you all at the 20 year mark!
Search Results for: 10
10 Light Painting Hacks
Light Painting Photographer Jason Rinehart has been on a roll creating great video content recently. This one is too good not to share again! Below is a inspiring video showing 10 light painting hacks using things that you can find around your house! Enjoy…
Check out more of Jason’s work here:
https://lightpaintingbrushes.com/pages/jason-rinehart
https://www.facebook.com/HartLight2113/
https://www.instagram.com/hartlight/
New Light Painting Guinness World Record, 1000 Orbs!
The quest to create the most light painted orbs in a single exposure all started with Andrew Wells and his Century of Light Orbs Project, in which Andrew single handedly created 100 light painted orbs in a single exposure!
Then the East Coast Light Painters, (myself included) broke Andrew’s record and got the first “Official” light painting world record by creating 200 orbs in a single exposure.
Then a team from India took a completely different approach to creating the orbs and blew the record away by creating 900 mini light painted orbs in a single exposure.
Now that record has officially been broken with 1000 Light Painted Orbs is a Single Exposure! What is even more wild is that they were all created by hand! 20 participants under the direction of Wolfgang Laich and Michael Walch have created ONE THOUSAND handcrafted light painted orbs in a single exposure! Check out the full interview with Wolfgang below for all the info on how they created this record setting image!
Hi Wolfgang congratulations on breaking the Guinness World Record for the most Light Painted Orb in a single image, 1000 Orbs is a one hell of a lot of Orbs! Can you tell me who was involved in setting this new Guinness World Record!
Well it was my friend Michael Walch and me (Wolfgang Laich) as the photographers. We, along with 18 friends and 3 independent referees took part in the attempt. A total of 20 people worked to build the light orbs in the final picture.
You had mentioned that you have not been light painting that long, how did you start light painting and how long have you been creating your images?
We started light painting about 2 years ago in the winter time. It gets dark early here (Kempten/Allgäu Germany) so we use the time for taking pictures. Mainly we try to tell a story with our pictures! First we made pictures with burglers in the dark night, movements and shadow, Fire balls…. then coloured shiny dead persons… we used more and more self made tools and also Light Painting Brushes.
We are two “Hobby” photographers with lot of energy for always trying new things. We meet one evening each week and try new things. Not all of our work is light painting, we are no specialists! (maybe we become…) We never could and want compare with professionals! We know this, we admire your work (also the other really good Light Art Professionals like JanLeonardo Wöllert…) For us what is most important is having fun and distraction from daily work time 😉
What inspired you to set out to break the record?
We found some pictures on the Guinness website from the former Record holders. The first record the Orbs were all made with a lot of handcrafted tools. Then the last record from the Indian team the orbs were made by little electric “game balls”. We wanted beat them with good old handcrafted orbs 😉 !
Can you tell me a little about the process, what was involved in the planning of the record attempt. How long did all the preparations take?
Normally in winter times after work it gets dark very early and there are no cows and fences in the fields 🙂 The farmers keep them away because of the snow. It is cold outside but that is the time when we have enough space, no people and time for some attempts. We worked for about two months (we built all the tools ourselves) with preparing, improving, testing and keeping the costs low, we needed for 2 months for all the preparations.
How did you create the orbs, did you make them by spinning them by hand or did you have a special tool?
We moved them by hand but in special way. We tried a lot of different possibilities, we made pictures and analysed the results afterwards. At the end after a lot of tries we decided that the best solution was to create the orbs using a tools with lights on both sides so a full orb would be created in a half rotation.
We had everything marked out with rows. We fixed three lines on the ground, one line in the middle of the field, one line marked the far right side and one line marked the far left side of the frame. On every string we fixed a little piece of wood every two meters on the rope. Three people were able to move back on the lying rope to the next little part of wood that marked the next location.
I took my place in the middle row on the line to give the instructions with my own voice. Every movement was coreographed, even how we created each individual orb in the row was by directions. Each of the 20 participants took their place in the row and then I gave the directions. To create each orb I gave the instructions “Lights on, half rotation, stop. Move to two o’clock, half rotation, stop. Move to three o’clock, half rotation, stop. Move to 5 o’clock…….. Think of it like standing on a watch face this was the easiest way to communicate where to turn the lights on and off for participants that had not done this before.
To create each orb we had 8 half movements. Then turn lights out!! Once we had a full row of orbs created the group moved one point back on the line. Then lights on and we repeated the same process with instructions all over again.
How big are each of the orbs?
Each of the orbs was approxamately 1.5 meters.
Why did you decide to create the orbs using this technique?
We chose this technique because it was the easiest for our friends to learn quickly. We wanted to create the image with a group. We only showed the participants how to create the orbs one time and only minutes before we set the new world record!
Did you achieve the image on your first exposure or did you have several attempts?
It was the first and only attempt we had. The weather was very cold and some participant weren’t be able to do it a second time. With really cold fingers it was even difficult to use the on/off button..
How long is the exposure for the winning image?
It was a 3149 second exposure.
What was the most difficult part of creating 1000 orbs in a single exposure?
Maintaining the proper distance between all the participants was the most difficult part. The problem was because of the optic lens with an 18mm lens. In front line you had ~40m and after 110 meter you need at least 55 meter. When our friend goes back to the next point after the “turn off” the light command the distance between the participants had to became little more….. And we didn’t use more lines… Michael always checked that the participants had the right distance to their neighbor before the lights were turned back on. That sometimes was not easy, but we all had a lot of fun with it!!!
Then second problem was making all the orbs countable!! We needed long ladder (5 Meter) to get an angle high enough for taking the picture. And last…. also because of the lens. We started with 12 people for 5 rows so that we didn’t lose too much of the best countable space in front of the camera.
Do you have plans to set any more light painting world records?
Good question, we normally never do the same thing two times. We will be happy to congratulate the next winners that will beat us! Different challenge maybe, we will do more light painting for sure!! After we got that nice response from you and JanLeonardo yes we try more and hope to improve but never want to copy!
Thank you very much for taking the time to share some great info on how you accomplished this excellent record, 1000 orbs by hand is just amazing! Great work and thanks again!
Thank you very much Jason and we are really proud that you found and show your interest!!!
Happy Regards and always a full “battery” 🙂
Wolfgang and Michael from Kempten/Allgäu Germany
To check out more work from Wolfgang and Michael you can check out Wolfgang’s Flickr page HERE.
TOP 100 photos of the International Light Painting Award 2016
Have a look for the TOP 100 photos of the International Light Painting Award 2016 by Jan Leonardo, now the grand jury will make the final selection! Good Luck to all that made the cut some AMAZING work!
http://www.lightart-photography.de/lp-award/gallery/
Thank you very much to the Artist Jury:
– Eric Paré
– Pala Teth
– Mart Barras
– Gus Mercerat
– Xiao Yang
– Jeswin Rebello
– Ivan Lucio Boluda / Rider of Light
Drone 100 by Ars Electronica Futurelab
Ars Electronica Futurelab focuses on the future at the nexus of art, technology and society. Along with technology and manpower from Intel, and Ascending Technologies, they recently set a new world record for the “Most Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) airborne simultaneously”. 100 UAV’s flying about at the same time not running into each other is a feat all to itself but that was not enough for these smartypants. They also wanted to get creative and what better way than to take the 100 UAV’s and make some light painting magic. Check out the images and video below…
P.S The East Coast Light Painters Still Hold the First Light Painting Guinness World Record. HA HA.
Ulrich Tausend a.k.a. 1000Lights Record Breaking Light Painting!
At the age of 36 Light Painting Photographer Ulrich Tausend already has some great life accomplishments under his belt. He has owned and sold a successful gaming company, he has helped to organize numerous large scale events, and is currently working at the JFF – Institute for Media Research and Media Education in Munich Germany. Over the last few years Ulrich has set his sites on setting a World Record for the Most People Creating a Light Painting! Recently I had the opportunity to talk to Uli about his record breaking work and his passion for sharing the Light Painting Art Form in his unique way. Check out the interview below…
LPP ∇ Uli, Congratulations on your wonderful work sharing light painting and your dedication to setting a light painting world record. Seeing all those people light painting together is really something special! Can you tell me a little more about yourself?
UT ∇ Lighting has always been an important topic in my photography. I started with Light Painting some years ago and I really like to explore what I can do with this Art Form.
While it is fun to do orbs and ufos and so on, I prefer to work with people. Most of my light paintings involve people in one way or the other. I like interaction, especially with newbies who don’t know about light painting yet and therefore often have really fresh ideas. It is always exciting to see people experience the magic of light painting for the first time. I am also very involved with education, I love the sparkle in the eyes of students. For the last two years I have been working at the JFF – Institute for Media Research and Media Education in Munich/Germany. I have a history of game design and owned a computer games company before selling it in 2008. Since then I have focused on media education but I am still involved with serious game design. I am a Sociologist.
LPP ∇ Does the name of your website 1000Lights relate to your passion for sharing light painting and education or something else?
UT ∇ My surname “Tausend” means “Thousand” in english. I use 1000lights as my light painting pseudonym.
LPP ∇ Is this the first time you have created a Light Painting on a large scale with many participants, or have you done something like this before?
UT ∇ Two years ago (2013) I organized the Kids Photo Award in Munich. There we first tried out creating an “audience light painting”.
UT ∇ The kids really loved it. *See more about the Audience Light Painting 2013.
In 2014 we repeated the event on a larger scale trying to set an official world record. Making an official record involving many people actually posed to be a bit tricky. Guinness World Records only wrote us about what we actually had to do to get it accepted after the event and their guidelines are pretty tough if you don’t pay to get some one from Guinness involved.
UT ∇ Since then I did several other “audience lightpaintings”. I especially liked the ones at the Ohrenblick Mal 2013 and and Mobile Clip Festival 2014. There we did something a bit more tricky. The people who won the award would freeze and put light on themselves with their smartphones. The others would add drawings.
UT ∇ In 2014 we also had a Pixelstick to “print” the logo of the event.
LPP ∇ What a great way to share Light Painting! Tell me about this most recent record attempt. Where was the event held, was it just to break the record or was this also part of some other event?
UT ∇ The world record took place at the re:publica conference about digital society. For the conference I handed in a proposal about new computer aided light painting techniques and I also proposed to set the record during the closing ceremony. Both proposals were declined. I also had another proposal for using Minecraft in Schools which was accepted so I went to the conference. The Minecraft session was pretty cool. We built our presentation in Minecraft itself which was a topic on the conference. I talked with one of the organizers of the conference (Jonny Hauesler) about it when the topic of light painting came up. He found it really interesting and asked me if we could still realize it. That was on the afternoon on 6.5.2015. At 22:00 he confirmed that they talked to the team and agreed to have the event during the massive closing ceremony on the next day! Incredible how flexible and open they are but that meant I had only couple of hours to prepare. During the night I planned everything. Back home in Munich I have a lot of equipment, but I was in Berlin with only a little light painting “travel” bag. In the morning I bought myself an extreme wide angle lens (Panasonic 7-14mm =14-28mm, f4) for my Olympus OMD EM-10. As I wanted the best possible setup I also borrowed a Nikon N800 with another 14mm extreme wide angle. That was actually not that easy as the company wanted a lot of money as security and there was only a little time to get it.
LPP ∇ Woah were you panicking or were you pretty calm because you had done audience light paintings before?
UT ∇ It was a pretty intense situation, but I was not panicking. I had done similar photos before, only on a smaller scale. I was pretty well prepared (considering the short time frame). My colleague Maximilian Vilser (who controled the pixelstick) also helped a lot. Also Lilian Kura and her friends were really nice. She is a professional writer and checked over my tweets to announce the event and she and her friends really spread the word. To give you an insight into what we thought about, only an hour before the actual photo took place we stopped a plan to get the camera to a even more elevated position. We would have either used a high ladder or even a lifting ramp, but both possibilities seemed to be too unstable to get a steady shot. Also it would have lengthened the event and I was a bit worried to tumble from the ladder with 2500 people watching me.
LPP ∇ Yes that would not have been good, lol. What about the lights for the participants, did you supply the lights or did they just use what they had available?
UT ∇ As I was traveling and not expecting to do a world record attempt I only had 10 lights with me, several helping angels distributed these. But 98% of the lights present were smartphone-flashlights from the audience. With more time to prepare many more people would have taken their own colored lights with them or I could have provided more colored lights to add more texture. You can see my pixelstick on the back left side of the picture writing the tag of the event #rp15lights. We did not know how many people would be at the event, so we wanted to close a gap in the back. But directly before the event more and more people came in and it was really packed. So the Pixelstick is partially blocked by people.
LPP ∇ How many people were actually involved in this image?
UT ∇ From what I heard 2500 people fit into that stage as you can see the stage was full when the event took place.
LPP ∇ WOW! How long was the set up, how did you explain the light painting process to all 2500 people, sometimes it is difficult to get 1 or 2 people to understand the Light Painting process.
UT ∇ During the closing ceremony I briefly explained what everybody had to do (take lights and move them or try to draw something). There were two short pauses before the closing ceremony which I used to try out the camera set up and we were also able to dim the lights for a moment for one test photo. I also had someone help me and press the shutter on the second camera.
LPP ∇ How long was the actual exposure for the image? Did you only have one take or several?
UT ∇ We did two takes, both from two perspectives. The exposure for both times were just 10 seconds and that was it, no retakes possible. I then ran back to the tech guys, cropped the photo in lightroom and they put it into their presentation. 12:00 minutes after the the shot it was presented on stage:
LPP ∇ Obviously you were not able to have a Guinness Representative because of the very short notice so are you going to submit this to try and get the Official record?
UT ∇ I am waiting for the video and some more photos from the front to try to hand in with them.
LPP ∇ I am sure I speak for all of the light painting community when I say WE HOPE YOU GET IT! One last question, what is it that drives you to share Light Painting in this way?
UT ∇ It is a combination of many things: Getting to know light painting astonishes people, it often sets a creative spark in them and is a lot of fun. Spreading the word of Light Paiting is my little humble way to make the world a slightly better place. Just seeing how the people react, they love it. It is pretty cool to stand in front of a huge crowd all waving lights.
But probably most important is that it fits in my own way of doing art. I like to bring people into situations where they have a feeling they never experienced before or do things they never thought of beforehand. In a way you could say that I like to manipulate people through art to discover and grow. Some will criticise events like this and question its artistic value. Instead of few doing professional light painting in a very planned and high quality way, it is many fresh minds trying it out without previous preconception of it. It is something unique which I think you can’t judge with usual quality standards which you apply to other light paintings. For me it is art nevertheless – or you could say it is art especially because of that difference.
LPP ∇ Is there anything else you would like to add?
UT ∇ The event itself was filmed but the video is not yet online. Several people filmed from within the audience. You can find some videos and other coverage on my page 1000lights.de/rp15. The tag of the event (#rp15lights) went trending (most tweeted) in Germany straight away. You can find more of my light painting pictures on 1000lights.de and my Facebook page.
In addition to the “audience light paintings” I have some other light painting specialities: – Again I like to interact through light painting with people who don’t have experience with it yet. That especially works well, if the people can see how the photo is coming along, while they are shooting it. – I experiment with my pixel stick and other programmable lights. The QVED Conference and the Mobile Clip Festival 2014 are nice examples for that. I am also working on live light shows with a VJ. but we still a way to go there.
LPP ∇ Thank you very much please keep up the incredible work!
UT ∇ Thank you very much.
Here is a little teaser video from the event until we can bring you the full version.
Ian Hobson Light Painting with the Nokia Lumia 1020
Nokia has teamed up with light painting photographer Ian Hobson to show the slow shutter capabilities of their new phone the Nokia Lumia 1020, the results are excellent! Check out the video below. For the full interview and report from Mr. Hobson check out this link HERE and Nokia is also running a #LumiaLowLight competition for the whole of February on Instagram. “The challenge is simple, share your greatest low light photos with the hashtag #LumiaLowLight on Instagram. At the end of the month Nokia will showcase some of the most awe-inspiring here on Nokia Conversations and the grand winner will receive the world’s greatest camera smartphone, the Nokia Lumia 1020, and a photography kit.” You can find out more on that HERE.
The Top 100 Light Paintings Have Been Selected
The top 100 light paintings for the 1st International Light Painting Awards have been selected and the results are mind blowing. All involved should be extremely proud. You want to be inspired by some masterful works of art LOOK here:
TOP 100 FOR THE 1ST INTERNATIONAL LIGHT PAINTING AWARDS!
Light Painting 101: On Camera Light Source Tutorial
Light Painting Tutorial: Light Painting 101 from Light Painting Photography on Vimeo.
This is the first in the 3 part light painting video tutorial series, Light Painting 101. The Light Painting 101 series will cover the three basic light painting photography techniques: On Camera, Off Camera, and Kinetic Light Painting Photography. In this light painting tutorial you will learn what the 3 basic light painting techniques are and what you need to create a light painting photograph. In this particular video I will show you a little about the “On Camera” light painting technique by showing you how to paint an octopus that lives in the woods?
Andrew Wells Captures 100 Orbs in a Single Exposure
Andrew Wells has gone orb crazy… Recently he broke the world record for the number of orbs captured in a single exposure. This record shattering light painting photograph of 100 orbs, yes I said 100, took weeks of waiting for the right conditions, over four hours to set up, and 34 minutes to physically spin the 100 orbs! After Andy rested his arm I got the chance to catch up with him and ask a few questions about his “Century of Light Orbs” project.
LPP ∇ Insane work on the Century of Light Orbs project. 100 ORBS in a single shot….. What inspired you to do such a thing?
AW ∇ Don’t really know how this one came about. We were out one night messing around and came up with a random shot of 21 orbs and we thought if we could somehow organize them it would look really cool. we pulled off 25 in organized rows and we thought “well its only four times that, how hard can it be!” one thing led to another and here we have it…….
LPP ∇ Take us thru it how long did it take to get this shot set up? How did you get them lined up so perfect?
AW ∇ The key to this shot was finding the right location. We needed an elevated position in order to see the perspective of the orbs in the grid but the ground needed to be well groomed for planning out purposes. Once we found the location (Whirlowbrook Hall in Sheffield) we then had to wait for the right weather conditions. We needed a clear, cloudless night in order to minimize light pollution from street lamps reflecting off the clouds and no moon. As we were planning what we calculated would be a 35-40 minute exposure we needed to keep light to an absolute minimum. This then obviously caused issues when it came to seeing what we were doing in terms of laying out the grid. This was done painstakingly with lasers, lights, tiny sticks to mark the location of where the orbs would be and a lot of trial and error, endless adjustments and most of all patience! This process probably took about an hour and a half to two hours! (we wanted it to be as perfect as possible!)
LPP ∇ Who helped you with the shoot?
AW ∇ This was obviously not a one man job and this project, along with many others, could not have been achieved without the help of my brother, Michael (Thanks buddy!)
LPP ∇ Did you spin all of the orbs yourself?
AW ∇ Once the shot was set up and we were ready to go I fired the shutter and we took half the grid each and started spinning….34 minutes later we found ourselves running back to the camera like a pair of kids to see what it looked like. I’d seen it in my minds eye many times (and even mocked one up on photoshop) but the truth was about to be revealed! The concentration needed to spin quality orbs constantly for 34 minutes while making sure you hit the mark on every one was almost too much.
LPP ∇ What was your light set up for the shot? Was it a custom light rig or just a strand of LED’s?
AW ∇ We use a custom light rig to spin our orbs which has been developed over time with many tweaks and adjustments along the way. It’s constructed using carbon fibre parts from a fishing rod with all the wiring running through the rig with the battery and switch built in to the handle. This operates with a SINGLE interchangeable led on each end which gives very crisp lines but the down side can be it can take a long time to spin a very full orb.
LPP ∇ Did you get it on the first take?
AW ∇ Did we get it on the first shot, well actually, no! I can see the funny side now but at the time I was mortified when I realized that I (much to the relief of Michael) has missed two from the back of the grid! What did we do? we just got straight back out there and did it all over again, with all that time spent setting up, I wasn’t going anywhere until we had the shot in the bag. The second time we nailed it!
LPP ∇ Any close calls with someone screwing up the shot?
AW ∇ The location was very quiet and out of the way so luckily we weren’t disturbed for the entire duration of the setting up and execution of the shot. It was a good job as right behind the camera is Whirlow Brook Hall, a small mansion house used for weddings etc and they had two very bright emergency lights out on the patio which we had to disable for the duration but were obviously very careful to ensure they were put back in full working order before we left!
LPP ∇ Did you or are you going to submit the shot to the guinness book of world records?
AW ∇ Quite a few people have mentioned the guinness book of records. The attempt was made really just to see if we could do it and as a personal challenge, so no plans to submit the shot but you never know!
LPP ∇ Will you try for more if someone comes along and does 101?
AW ∇ If someone comes along and does 101 (something we did talk about while setting up the shot but decided to go for the purity of the 100) then it just gives me an excuse to go out and do some more!
LPP ∇ Thank you very much for your time awesome work!
AW ∇ I just want to mention at this point that a lot of my inspiration comes from the great community of light painters on flickr and my thanks and gratitude goes out to all of them (you know who you are) for the encouragement and inspiration that they all give! Thanks guys!
Thanks for your interest in the century of light orbs and watch this space for my next project!
For the promotion and progression of Light Painting!