Camera Rotation is a form of Kinetic Light Painting Photography where the lights in the scene generally stay stationary and the camera itself is moved to create the design in the final image. Using Camera Rotation you can take a common scene, ↑like the corner liquor store above ↑, and turn it into something extraordinary. If you are not familiar with Camera Rotation Photography there is a detailed tutorial HERE that will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the subject!

Camera Rotations are generally created using either a custom made CRT (Camera Rotation Tool) or a bulky Tripod Gimbal. Recently over in the Camera Rotation & Kinetic Photography Facebook group Light Painting Artist Juls Boo shared an idea for an interesting off the shelf solution, the full description of how to build it is pinned to the top of the FB group. His solution basically consist of a couple of L-Brackets and an indexing Rotator that is “normally” used for shooting Panoramics. The best part about using the Indexing Rotator is that the angles are already marked for you eliminating the need for a digital level. Below are a few shots of the set up and examples of images created with the rig, as you can see it breaks down really compact to fit in your bag.

This is what it looks like mounted to a tripod.

Here are some examples of images Juls has created using this rig.

The post Juls made sparked others to share their ideas too. There are a bunch of great ideas and solutions that you should check out but one in particular that seemed super simple was what Dan Chick came up with. Dan’s version is basically one Gemtune DH-55 Panoramic Ball Head with Indexing Rotator, With Quick Release Plate & Clamp and two Fotga Universal Quick Release Plate L Brackets. Why two brackets you might ask, well the answer to that is to help center the weight of the camera over the tripod.  Here are some images of the rig and below is a video that Dan made to show how it all works together!

Here are a few examples of images Dan has created with his rig:

Now go get this stuff and build yourself a rotation rig!

Light Painting is GROWING! Just launched last friday is more proof of this with the first ever magazine dedicated to the Light Painting Photography Art Form! Light Art Digital Magazine was created by Sasa Lightpainting and Ramsés Pacheco Light Painter, these guys did a tremendous job on this very first issue! The magazine will be published quarterly and sets out to “be a meeting point, a showcase, a reference and a opportunity of artistic diffusion for light painters around the world”. We are all looking forward to the future of this publication! Please head over to their website where you can download the magazine for FREE in both English and Spanish!

On March 3rd-4th 2017, the Light Painting World Alliance will be hosting a Light Painting Photography Meet Up in the Italian capital city of Rome! Because the group will be meeting in historical locations, it will be required that all event participants are registered in advance so if you are interested in attending please make sure to head over to the LPWA Event page HERE to get the details on how to sign up ASAP.

LPWA Meet ups are great events where you can collaborate and learn from other light painting artist. Past LPWA events have been very successful and given birth to some massive collaborations like the images below so make sure to sign up early:

For the first time a Light Painter has won F-Stoppers Photographer of The Year! Light Painting Photographer Eric Paré has quickly risen to become one of Light Paintings most well know names. Eric travels around the globe creating light paintings of exquisite beauty with the lovely Kim Henry at his side. With a unique style that is instantly recognizable as his own and a willingness to share his light painting techniques Eric has steadily built a community around his light painting work and the community has rewarded him by voting Eric into the top spot as F-Stoppers Photographer of The Year! Eric’s talent is only matched by his dedication and work ethic, so on behalf of the LPP Community CONGRATULATIONS on a well deserved win Eric! Check out the F-Stoppers article HERE.

Check out more of Eric’s work on his Instagram Page, Website and his Facebook group, where Eric hosts an incredible group that shares everything you could ever want to know about his unique style of Light Painting!

As we role into 2017 our Light Painting Art Form is growing faster than ever before. The opportunities that are available to artist across the world have never been greater. One organization that stands on the forefront of creating opportunities for Light Painting Artist is the Light Painting World Alliance! Since 2010 LPWA has worked to build the light painting community by collecting artist profiles, connecting artist, hosting exhibitions, live shows, historical lectures, photo booths, and massive collaborations.

Just a few years ago events specifically for Light Painting were unheard of but thanks to the hard work and dedication of people like Sergey Churkin, the Light Painting World Alliance Advisory Board and its local representatives the opportunities are growing each year! The LPWA is free to join and its free to participate in the numerous opportunities that LPWA offers. I think one of the events that really exemplify the true spirit of the LPWA organization and the Light Painting Art Form is the massive collaborations so I wanted to share some of those…

A little history on the Massive collaborations. The first collaboration was directed by Jadikan at the 2^nd LPWA worldwide exhibition in Paris (2013), when 20 artists all together created a Light Painting animation on Place Concorde. This began a ongoing theme of creating these monumental collaborations at different events the LPWA organized. In 2014 at the 1st LighArt Congress organized by Alfredo Alvarez and the LPWA in Oviedo Spain 34 artists created the IYOL 2015 logo under the direction of Alfredo Alvarez, Ivan Barco and Riders of Light.

2015 was the UNESCO International Year of Light and Light Based Technologies and LPWA was an official collaborating partner. There were 2 LPWA massive collaborations in 2015 the first was in Paris, on Tokyo Palace, and then in Dorum (Germany) a.k.a the LightHouse Meet-up, where 24 artists collaborated and light painted the IYoL 2015 logo over Nord Sea (location supervisor Joerg Miedza).

Most recently The Light Painting World Alliance organized a Massive Collaboration under the direction of LPWA China Representative Roy Wang. Roy worked for two years, connecting the people of China and the light painting art form. Roy’s great efforts gave the LPWA the unique possibility to manage the LPWA Longhushan 2016 Special Event, the 1^st International LPWA exhibition in China!

Sergey of LPWA said “We were so lucky to visited that unique place! Longhushan is wonderful enclave declared Global Geopark by UNESCO, the birthplace of Taoism and modern resort area, legendary Tiger & Dragon Mountains.”

The LPWA event in Longhushan consisted of an International Light Painting Exhibition, A Massive LP Collaborations and a Light Painting Animation Project. The artist that participated were from all over the globe and they included The Lichtfaktor Team, Children Of Darklight Team and solo artists Darren Pearson, Mass and Diliz. Roy and Sergey completed this collective with all of their creative and organization skills.

The “Big Image” organization team consisted of Frodo Alvarez DKL, Edu Cajigal, Ivan Lucio, Sfhir, Nacho Cosio and Ramon Aser.

The most recent meet up brought a team of International Light Painting Artist to Hobgoblins Playground in the Nevada Desert. The participants included Sergey & Natalia Churkin (Russia), Dan Whitaker (UK), Derek Lawrence (Canada), Roy Wang (China), Alfredo Alvarez, Sfhir, Fernando Heras Castan – all from Spain, David Hull, Christina Vasquez, Andrius Sprindys, Todd Blaisdell, Chris Bauer, Kristen Schlecht, Bill Burk, Heather Marie, Marisa Bisping + Nathan, Brooke LaBrie, Matthew Scherfenberg – all from USA, and Ivan Fodor (Slovakia).

The team had two shots in mind that they wanted to accomplish the first was “Light River”. The idea of Light River was to illustrate the importance of water in a human’s life. Water, flowing through the empty and desiccated canyon – as symbol of all water reservoirs on the Earth. This beautiful image was created over the course of 3 hours and took 5 attempts to get!

The other collaboration image was called the Old Spanish Trail project. The Old Spanish National Historic Trail links Santa Fe and Los Angeles across six states and 2,700 miles. It traverses red rock mesas, passes below snow-capped peaks, and fords untamed rivers, avoiding the immense depths of the Grand Canyon and skirting the continent’s harshest deserts. Millions of people followed this trail since early 1600s in hope of a better future. To tribute this living road, created an epic light painting image, which is called “People Bring Their Light to California” – or shorter “Bringing Light to LA”.

These collaborations are just a small part of the opportunities that the Light Painting World Alliance offers to all light painters around the world! If you are not a part of the LPWA you can head over to their website HERE, sign up for free and start participating in some of these incredible opportunities!

 

If you spend 5 minutes talking to Light Painting Photographer Denis Smith you will know his love of Light Painting is immense and his enthusiasm for sharing the Art Form is just as big! Denis is known for his “Ball Of Light” that he has created all over Australia and the world. Denis began Light Painting in 2009 and it literally changed his life, more of that here. For the past few years Denis has been sharing his passion with his Light Painting workshops and now he has created the ultimate light orb spinning device called “The Ball Of Light Tool” that will spread the light even more! Check out the video below and read on for all the details.

Interview with Light Painter Denis Smith:

LPP ∇ Hey Denis congratulations on the launch of your Ball of Light Tool! This thing looks like a beast!

DS ∇ Thanks mate. It has been a real labour with many, many versions, prototypes and variations before I was happy to share it with the world.

LPP ∇ Can you tell me about it! It looks like a bit of a modular system with different heads and cables, all attached to some sort of control box?

DS ∇ My very first orb tool was simply a tennis ball on the end of a piece of string with some LED’s sticking out of the ball. It was great, and really reliable, but it meant that for each color I wanted, I had to have a full set up of string, battery and “head”. Of course this became a tangled mess every night. Way back in 2010 I devised a system of connecting different heads to the battery pack via a cable. This meant that I could have a bag of different colours, the cables were replaceable, as these were the most unreliable, and a replaceable, battery pack. It completely changed the way I painted with light.

LPP ∇ So you can switch out different colored heads, thats cool how many colors are available?

DS ∇ This is the really fun part. The Ball of Light Tool ships with 2 colours that I choose, and will be clearly shown on the shop, then I will be making up all sorts of colors that will be available to purchase. We have been sending a lot of packs out with up to 5-6 heads. At this stage we have about 10, but this will grow quickly. Not only will there be different colors, but we will have a variety of heads specifically designed for extreme conditions. These will include “ultra bright” heads for use in really bright urban areas. There will also be runs of “limited edition” heads when I find some crazy LED’s or material to use.

LPP ∇ What does the main control box do exactly?

DS ∇ The controller serves several purposes. It holds the 9v battery. Over the years I have experimented with all sorts of power supplies and batteries. But this is perfect, just the right current, ultra-compact and lasts for ages. The controller also allows you to control the “brightness” of the head. This is really the huge one. Traditionally you had to make your camera settings based on the brightness of the tool so that is wasn’t over or under exposed. This meant that your background was immediately secondary. Anyone who follows my work knows it is all about the background. Whether that is in a bright street scene, or under the full moon. Being able to adjust the brightness of the tool means that you are able to easily make creative choices based on the bigger picture. Of course there is a button to activate the head. I have used the absolutely best quality components I could find for the controller. I want these to work for years.

LPP ∇ That on/off button and brightness control are gonna be great! It also looks like it has a wrap or wrist strap, what is this about?

DS ∇ Traditionally you hold the cable in your hand and spin it while turning. This causes 2 things to happen. You can damage your finger pretty quickly. There are all sorts of ways to overcome this. You can wear gloves, or tape up your finger. I have also seen some pretty ingenious ways to grip the cable. But it is difficult to get away from the fact that the cables break pretty quickly where you grip them. Over the years I have devised a grip and method of attaching it to the cable that, if you watch the tutorial video, it will last for a long time and removes the possibility of blisters. In fact, it makes the process incredibly comfortable. We even shot some ultra-slow motion video for the tutorial showing exactly how I hold the grip and position the cable, that was fun.

LPP ∇ I saw one of your videos where you are smacking the heads with hammer, you put these things through some pretty rough testing can you tell me a little about that?

DS ∇ Oh yes. I have designed the head so that you can smack it against the ground, break off an LED or even hit yourself on the head with it, and the thing will keep on working. We were mucking around in the studio one day and I made the comment that you could beat the shit out of it with a hammer and it would still work. So we picked one head and gave it a shot. We ended up using the same head for about 6 videos, throwing it around outside and snapping off LEDS while it was still on. It was so much fun and in the video you can see the whole head deforming and it still bounced back.

LPP ∇ Why did you decide to build this tool?

DS ∇ Light Painting has exploded in popularity in the past few years. Back in the day, as you would remember, we had to learn how to solder, drill and work out what resistors had to go with what current and so on. It was so much fun. There have been some incredibly good videos out there showing how to make a simple orb tool, achievable by most. But I have been increasingly asked from all over the world, and by a lot of very experienced light painters, to make a tool to sell. The reality is there are a huge amount of people who simply cannot make these tools. There are also a lot of people who don’t have the time. My goal is to share the joy of light painting with as many people as possible. And If by creating a simple to use, reliable and fun tool that allows more people to get out and at least try, then this seems a great way.

LPP ∇ How long have you been working on this?

DS ∇ I decided about a year ago that this was going to happen. I thought it would be really easy. Just replicate what I used and get it out there. It turned out to be a much, much bigger project. I realized pretty quickly that the overall build quality needed to be much higher than my tool. I also realized that it had to be cost effective for people. The time spent designing the product, sourcing the right components, then building testing, modifying, testing, changing, pricing etc simply took and astonishing amount of time. Not mention money.

LPP ∇ I know the quality of this product was really important to you, but with quality comes a higher cost, how did you balance the quality and cost out when you were developing the tool?

DS ∇ Great question, this was probably the hardest part of the whole process. I had a target price that I knew would be achievable to the average Light Painting enthusiast. But I was not going to compromise on the quality of the design or components. I spent so much time ordering, waiting for and putting the parts together then head out testing. This was a recurring pattern for months until I knew I could package up and send out a kit feeling proud, and genuinely excited for the person at the other end. There have been people questioning the price but once people think hard about the time I have spent (astronomical), the money I have invested (substantial) and the passion there is in each kit (there is love in those boxes!) it pretty quickly evens out. I am completely stoked with where the price ended up. It is a great balance. Obviously there will be those who disagree, but you cannot please everyone. I was out with someone last night who bought a pretty basic torch for the same price recently. I was so nervous the day we opened up sales. 24 hours later I was completely satisfied that we had hit the sweet spot. We got hammered!

LPP ∇  Here is the best question… where can we get one?

DS ∇ We have opened up a shop so people can head over and check out the tool there, CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE SHOP! Soon we will be adding a bunch of other products including the Light Painting Brushes system which I am also excited about.

LPP ∇ Thank you for taking the time to answers some questions, it looks like you have really thought of everything to create the ultimate orb spinner! I hope The Ball Of Light Tool is a great success and helps with the continued growth of the Light Painting Art Form!

DS ∇ Thank you.