And the winner of the Light Painting Photography Contest for May 2021 is Frodo Alvarez for the above image created using a empty water bottle to create a beautiful texture of light!
This picture was taken in an amazing adventure in France in 2019. My partner Patry Diez and I, we often collaborate with the french crew BODYLIGHT CONNECTIK’ART, a group of performers and bodypainters focused in Project 2888, a postapocaliptic world, full of futuristic creatures, fluor colors and UV lights, performing in different kind of events, and it’s always a great inspiration for lightpainting.
Patry plays the rol of Kaälys and I am Küma Light. On this occasion we had 2 gigs in France, a Burning Man-style corporate party, and a private birthday party. Patry was performing as Kaälys, and I was just helping and taking photos and light painting portraits.
The main bodypainter artist and also the mind of this project is Sita Vilaça. We met her for the first time at a United Lightpainters meeting in Merzouga, and since then a new artistic friendship grew. She’s a master in bodypainting, specialised in fluor colors and uv light. Her works are just epic, I’m a big fan of her work, and so does Patry. So I took Kaälys portrait at the end of the second event. We had some free time so I created some light painting portraits with the guests and some of the creatures. Here you can see more results: 
[Kaälys & Kamaïte with Vj. Aurel. Photo Frodo DKL]
I shot with my OLYMPUS OM-D E-M1 MarkII and M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 7-14 mm 1:2:8 PRO. The settings were F7.1, ISO 200, Live Composite 0,5″ , and total exposure time less than 1 minute (I don’t know it for sure, but I know I try to be very fast with this kind of portraits). There are 4 steps in the creation of this image: 1. The trees in the background were lit by the venue lights, and the exposure was controlled with live composite mode, so the scene was not overburnt 2. I lit Patry with a 100LED UV flashlight filtered with onionskin paper.
3. I took my bottle connected to an ultrafire UV flashlight, and worked some freestyle to create those light trails around Kaälys.
4. Finally I wrote the name of the creature with a camping light filtered in blue.
About the bottle: it’s been years since I’ve been using this same old bottle. I fell in love with it the first time I tested it. There is a green fluor piece inside which reacts very great with UV lights, creating this green and purple organic light texture. So this is my first use of this bottle. 
But also, things change a lot if I use a warm Ultrafire flashlight with the same bottle, as you can see in this image which was taken at another Lightpainters United meeting in Belgium, with Patry and Luis Medina: 
If you like my work, feel free to visit and support my sites: www.instagram.com/childrenofdarklight (portfolio and making of) www.youtube.com/childrenofdarklightTV ( light painting channel) For this winning image Frodo will receive a prize package filled with light painting tools and treasures from our sponsors COAST Flashlights, 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.
