The winner for the “A Message Of Thanks” themed Light Painting Photography contest is Rob D’Angelo for the simply great image in a series of positive messages Rob has been creating during these uncertain times. This is what Rob had to say about his winning image.

“This image has a lot of meaning for me. Here is a little background on what I had created. We’re all living in uncertain times right now, due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. So much has changed, in so many ways. To keep myself motivated, positive, and to take my mind off things, I wanted to channel my creativity, so I had the idea to develop a series of these light painting photo messages – this is one of the photos in that series.”

“I wanted to combine my love for landscape photography, with my love for light painting and try to keep things relatively simple and clean. Each photo would contain a single positive word or phrase written in it, such as “hope”, “stay home”, “in this together”, “be positive”, and most recently and above all – “thank you.” I wanted to create a special thank you, to all of our first responders, healthcare professionals, and every other essential worker out there every day on the front lines during this pandemic. I wanted to say how we truly appreciate their sacrifices, courage, and how hard they are working to keep us all safe. The idea was to share these photos on my social channels, in hopes to help others stay positive as well.”

“From a technical perspective, besides choosing what word to write, I tried my best to associate a specific color, with a specific word – in the case of this photo, I chose blue. Originally, I thought to paint symbols and icons with the words for representation, but saw how complicated it was looking. In the end, I decided to simply show an EKG graph. At first, I thought it would be fun to take each photo in different locations, but thinking again, the consistency of “home” in each photo would be symbolic. So I stayed in my backyard for each. For the tools used, I kept it pretty simple. I’m currently using a Canon 70D and was shooting wide at 10mm. The settings used were f/14 ISO 100 and 140 second exposure. I’m currently using a NITECORE MT226C Torch to illuminate everything. For the letters, I used a Light Painting Brushes White Opaque Light Writer, with a Blue Screw On Color Filter. To illuminate the background, I used a Light Painting Brushes White Color Hood for parts of the scene, and then attached a Yellow Color Filter to hit other details in the foreground. The writing of letters is always tricky, so I can say I definitely tried numerous attempts until I got something I was pleased with. In the end, I was really happy with the end result and proud to have this image in this series I had created.”

To check out more of Rob’s work at the link below:
Website
Instagram
Facebook

For Rob’s winning image showing Thanks Rob will receive a prize package filled with light painting tools and treasures from our sponsors COAST Flashlights, Neon Flexible, Rosco and Light Painting Brushes ! Please support these awesome companies that support our light painting art from, without them this contest series would not be possible! If you would like to enter the next Light Painting Photography contest click here for all the details.

The winner of the Light Painting Photography Contest for May 2020 is… Kim Von Coels for the image you see above! Kim took a unique approach to creating her wings for this winning image read on to see exactly how it was done!

Tools Needed:
Camera on tripod with cable release.
Stencil on stand with clips Laser on stand.
Smoke pellets and lighter.
Steel wool.
With a chain and clip for spinning.
Portrait scanner.
Or small handheld flash for front light.
Strong torch for backlight with coloured filters.
I used a LedLenser xr21.2 and some hand cut gels.
Fantastic model
Assistant (if you have one) in this case it was Phill Fisher

How to: Firstly you need to line up all the elements of your shot. Laser at the very back on a stand. Model in the centre. With plenty of space between the model and the laser so you can spin the steelwool. Stencil stand infront of the camera. I attach my stencil with clips to the stand so I can swing it in and out of the shot.

Then I compose my shot. Make sure the model is central. I use the focus box in the view finder so I know its exactly right. I then focus on the model and turn my focus to manual. I mark the ground where the model is standing so I don’t always need to refocus.
Once everything is lined up and in focus I bring the stencil in and line it up in my viewfinder. I know where the model is because of the focus box. When the stencil is in shot I cannot see the model so its important to have a reference so I can line the stencil up with the model perfectly.

Once everything is ready the process is as follows:
1. Start exposure using bulb mode and shutter release cable.
2. Steel wool spun behind the model.
3. Backlight with yellow filter shone onto the walls to fill the rest of the stencil where the steel wool didn’t reach (in my case we shot in a tunnel so the steel wool bounced off the walls and didn’t reach the tips of the wings)
4. Move stencil out of the way.
5. Backlight model with red filter.
6. Front light the model either with a portrait scanner or little hand held flash.
7. Light smoke pellet and fill area with smoke to make the laser beams stand out in the picture.
8. End exposure.
Repeat until all elements if the picture are satisfactorily balanced. In my case i think we did about 20 attempts before we were truly happy. Pro tip: be fussy!!!! Dont be satisfied unless its perfect. Do it again. Persistence pays off.

For this winning Image Kim will receive a prize package filled with light painting tools and treasures from our sponsors COAST Flashlights, Neon Flexible, Rosco and Light Painting Brushes ! Please support these awesome companies that support our light painting art from, without them this contest series would not be possible! If you would like to enter the next Light Painting Photography contest click here for all the details.

Congratulations to the winner of the Light Painting Photography Spirograph contest Antonio Martínez for the above image titled Andromeda! This image was a complicated one to make here is what Antonio had to say about his winning Light Painting!

“My intention was to create as a galaxy originally only with the spirograph but I thought it was all a bit empty. I wanted to include some other light painting effects to make it better, so I included added in some more effects. To create the image I also used a kaleidoscope, a glitter card, a black fiber optic and several different flashlights with color filters.

To create this image I made the spirograph with an orange plastic rod attached to a flashlight and the round Light Painting Paradise adapter. I  hung it from the ceiling of the living room with a piece to thread, then I used a flash of cold light in the center of the frame. I made some effects with the black fiber optic with a blue color filter and then without moving the camera I did some more effects by lighting a glitter card in front of the lens to create white dots.

Finally I changed the camera to a different tripod that I had prepared in front of a kaleidoscope and I made some more effects in the form of radial lines, dots, and concentric ring around the spirograph all these in blue and orange. All of those element come together to make the Andromeda galaxy image! I made many combinations for two nights in a row until I got this one that you see here.

The settings used were: 395 seconds of exposure – multiple diaphragm with manual lenses (f/8 to f/16) – 14mm – ISO100 – 5500K – multiple focus – changing camera position.

Thank you very much to everyone for the votes, and to the judges for finally choosing my picture! Here are a few behind shots of the setup.

For this winning Image Antonio will receive a prize package filled with light painting tools and treasures from our sponsors COAST Flashlights, Neon Flexible, Rosco and Light Painting Brushes ! Please support these awesome companies that support our light painting art from, without them this contest series would not be possible! If you would like to enter the next Light Painting Photography contest click here for all the details. 

The winner of the Light Painting Photography Homemade Light Painting Tool and Image is Rod Evans for this ingenious Light Painting tool made up of  hose clamps, tube guards and empty M&M containers! Incredible how a light painter can walk trough a store and see things differently… “I wonder what that would do if I shine a light through it”

Here is what Rod had to say about his winning image and the tool he created it with!

I captured this image at the pool in my backyard (in northern NSW, Australia). The spiral design was drawn completely by hand and is a shape that I have been working on for the last year or so. Most of my attempts at this shape are not worthy of publication but if I stick with it I usually end up getting at least one good shot from a shoot. When I saw this one on the back of the camera I really liked it as it has good symmetry and a nice reflection.

The tool I built is basically a red acrylic tube with a green M&M’s container taped on the end (I chose the red and green colours for one reason only….it was Christmas!!!). I purchased several coloured acrylic tubes from China recently and I love finding things to tape on the ends for light painting. Walking through the supermarket a while ago, I noticed the M&M’s containers (in four different colours) and thought they might look good with light shone through them, so I purchased them all, cut off the lids and put them to work. I’ve since done a few shoots using the containers and they all look great. The red tube is attached to the torch using a silicon grey-water adaptor that I bought from my local hardware store. I use butterfly hose clamps to secure the tube and torch in place. Torch used was a Nitecore P26. After creating the spiral shape I then walked over to the camera and painted in the trees with my headtorch. Check out more of Rod’s awesome Light Painting work on his Instagram Account HERE!

For this winning Image Rod will receive a prize package filled with light painting tools and treasures from our sponsors COAST Flashlights, Neon Flexible, Rosco and Light Painting Brushes ! Please support these awesome companies that support our light painting art from, without them this contest series would not be possible! If you would like to enter the next Light Painting Photography contest click here for all the details. 

The winner of the Light Painting Photography contest titled “Light Being” is…  Dennis Berka, A.K.A Ryus Light Works, for the super cool image above! You might look at this image an wonder how the heck it was created in a single exposure, well there were a lot of steps involved as you will see from the description below! Here is what Dennis said about his complex winning image!

“The photo was created in the ruins of an old tar production building. The place is usually a swamp below the pillars you see in the photo, but one summer here was so hot that it dried up. So I decided to go there with two fellow lightpainters and try out a technique I played around with at that time. For the Fire Golem I placed a small bit of shaped steel wool on a black metal sheet and put up a tripod next to it. I used an old analog Nikkor zoom lens that had a macro setting so it was easy to set focus on the little figure. It was about the size of a smartphone. Next I positioned another tripod for the scene you see in the photo and put a manual wide angle lens on the camera. After setting the scene I drew a circle on the screen of my camera with a non permanent whiteboard marker to mark where the fire golem was supposed to appear. Back to the steel wool figure to align it to fit inside the circle on the camera screen. Once everything was prepared and my friends placed in the scene I closed down the aperture of the zoom lens nearly all the way, lit the steel wool with a lighter and started the exposure. Once it was fully burned through (with the help of a few blows of air) I capped the lens, swapped it to the wide angel and switched tripods to the one for the scene. Now cap off the wide angle lens and the only thing left to do was walk into the scene to the place where the fire golem is supposed to stand and light the scene from there in red. I used a technique that Pala Teth demonstrated a few times here hiding the flashlight from the camera. The last touch was to add a little lake blue light to the shadows of the scene to make them visible a bit more. The rest of the light came from street lanterns a little bit to the side of the place that produced a real nice texture on the pillars because it was shining through large bushes. I played around with this technique quite a lot and have refined and used it a lot of times since then to create a lot of fantastic photos that people always wonder about how they were made.”

You can check out more of Dennis’s Light Painting work on his Facebook and Instagram pages linked Below:
https://www.facebook.com/RyusLightworks
https://www.instagram.com/ryuslightworks

The Models for this image were the Light Painting Duo Night Lights: https://www.facebook.com/Nightandlights/

For this winning Image Dennis will receive a prize package filled with light painting tools and treasures from our sponsors  COAST Flashlights, Neon Flexible and Light Painting Brushes ! Please support these awesome companies that support our light painting art from, without them this contest series would not be possible!

If you would like to enter the next Light Painting Photography contest click here for all the details.

The winner for the Orb themed Light Painting Photography Contest for September 2019 is… Mart Barras for the above image titled Nucleus! The thought and execution that went into creating this image without any post production is just nuts. Here is what Mart said about the image…

“This was shot in an abandoned MOD ammo dump in wales, during a camping trip with other UK light-painters. I set up facing up a doorway in the dump, knowing it would give me a lot of dead space for a camera rotation and act as a main element and add to the framing. I then put Phil in the doorway and set up a flash on a stand behind him gelled orange. I did a couple of test shots to ensure the rotation part was as accurate as I could get it. I then set up a second tripod , close by facing down the corridor of the dump and marked the spot in the floor where I wanted an orb to be spun. Once that was set up I returned to the original tripod, I set some vape going behind Phill and started the exposure. At each rotation point, I fired off the flash and then capped the lens and moved to it the next position etc. Once I had come back to the start I left the lens cap on and moved the camera to the second tripod position and re-adjusted my focal length to the spot marked out for the orb. The final part was to spin the orb and end the exposure. SOOC Raw conversion in camera, Shot in one exposure. No photoshop.”

Tools used:
Nikon 7100D
Tokina 11-16mm
Two Tripods
Orb tool
Flash Gun
Flash Stand
Gels Vape Machine
Camera Rotation Tool

Settings: F5.6, ISO200, 12mm 195.2 seconds

Make sure to follow Mart’s mind blowing light painting work on his Facebook and Instagram pages linked below!
https://www.facebook.com/mart.barras
https://www.instagram.com/martbarras_lightpainting/

For this winning Mart will receive a prize package filled with light painting tools from our sponsors Denis Smith, COAST Flashlights, Neon Flexible and Light Painting Brushes ! Please support these awesome companies that support our light painting art from, without them this contest series would not be possible!

If you would like to enter the next Light Painting Photography contest click here for all the details.

The winner for the transportation themed Light Painting Photography Contest for July 2019 is… Jordi Radok for the above image titled Ghost Rider! Here is what Jordi had to say about the winning image!

“It’s been almost a year since we had this photo in a list of photos to do with light painting. We had not been given the opportunity, or so we thought. When we saw the theme of the Light Painting Photography contest I immediately thought about this photo, but time passed, and in the last week before the deadline we started asking friends if they knew someone with a motorcycle that we could use. In the end we got to create the photo in a custom motorcycle workshop! We shot it during their work time so we had to work as fast as possible, because they were working! We took a model mechanic and we did some tests, until we found a picture that seemed correct. The surprise was when we put it on the computer screen, the “model” had not been staying still, so the photo was horrible. Only half a skull and dark shadows were seen around the body, we had to discard the photo, and there were only two days left until the deadline…”

“The next day I remembered that my brother had a couple of old bikes to repair in a small garage. We got down to work… We cleared a little space, put aside all the tools and took one of the bikes, lined the most visible parts with black vinyl because it was originally white, we put a small skull over the fairing and prepared the tripod and camera with an angular optic and a low-angle plane. Almost without looking for it we realized that with a roof very low the roof lines gave us a very interesting perspective, and we started playing. We tried the photo the day before we had internalized the process, Eva put on the Ghost rider kit – mask, leather jacket and chains and rode on top of the bike.”

“The first thing that I did was to illuminate Eva and the bike with a warm Minimaglite lantern. Once illuminated I started with the fire effect, which is made with a black fiber optic and a Thorfire tk15s flashlight at full power with an orange gel.”

“I focused more on the front wheel and above the head, then I did a little light against the ground with the same flashlight at half power. Finally we used a bit of smoke to create atmosphere and made a very soft contra light directly from Ghost rider, which was like a statue !! This image we repeated 6 times, but when we put the last photo on the big screen we looked at each other and a huge smile came out to us both, we had just got the photo that we had imagined.”

Gear Used:
Sony a7S
Samyang 14mm

Settings:
Bulb mode
301″ Second Exposure
ISO 125
F 6.3

You can see more of our work here:
https://www.instagram.com/2pixelsart/
https://www.facebook.com/2pixelsart/

For this winning Jordi will receive a prize package filled with light painting tools from our sponsors COAST Flashlights, and Light Painting Brushes ! Please support these awesome companies that support our light painting art from, without them this contest series would not be possible!

If you would like to enter the next Light Painting Photography contest click here for all the details.

The winner for the Light Painting photography contest from December 2018 is… Jannis Sid for this simple and elegant Light Painting image he created while walking around one of his favorite locations in the center of Helsinki. This is what Jannis said about the winning image,

For this winning Jannis will receive a prize package filled with light painting tools from our sponsors COAST Flashlights, and Light Painting Brushes ! Please support these awesome companies that support our light painting art from, without them this contest series would not be possible! If you would like to enter the next Light Painting Photography contest click here for all the details.