A few months ago I shared some NASA light paintings created on the International Space Station, now we have another little gift recently released from NASA but this time the light painting was created by mistake. The above image is a single frame light painting from the Hubble Space Telescope. “Hubble had locked onto a bad guide star, potentially a double star or binary. This caused an error in the tracking system, resulting in this remarkable picture of brightly coloured stellar streaks.” Via ESA.

These Fractal Filters look rad for light painting. If your interested in helping make these a reality, and getting all 3 for a good deal check out the Kickstarter page HERE.

There has been another spark ignited on the SOOC debate recently, if you don’t know what the SOOC debate is good for you, you may want to stop reading now before you get dragged in…. The SOOC debate is all about should a light painting be “Straight Out Of Camera”, or is some editing of the image OK and if so what does “some” mean… when is it not a light painting anymore? My personal opinion is any photograph is always best to get it right when you shoot it, that is what I personally strive for in my light paintings, but really you can do whatever the hell you want! I just don’t think you should say you created an image entirely in the camera if you added a bunch of layers to it in photoshop or some other digital editing program. I know some LP’s label their shots No Photoshop but tweak them to death in Lightroom, so does that deserve a no PS label?

On the other end of the spectrum, Light Painting Photographer Eric Paré Teamed up with digital artist Mike Campau to create a f@#*ing awesome new light painting project (image above) that is SOOC, (straight out of computer), see what I did there… There is no way an image like the edited version of this one could have ever been achieved SOOC, unless maybe your TCB and even with his skill set it would still be pretty difficult. Because this image is out of the computer does that make the light painting part of it any less awesome?

The debate about if a light painting should or should not be edited will rage for at least a little while longer, but as light painting grows and new projects like this one come out opinions will change, or not. Check out the before and after, the BTS video below that shows how much work went into creating the final image, and feel free to post your thoughts in the comments section so we can all look back and laugh 5 years from now…

Light Painting Photographer Dana Maltby a.k.a. TCB got some nice exposure on CBS Minnesota this week, check it out below.

P.S. I would just like to say, in my humble opinion, there is nothing “easy” about creating the incredibly complex and masterful works of art that Dana consistently produces or accessing some of his locations in the depths of the city, just saying…