SpiroJib

You probably know about Andrew Whyte’s DOME tool created out of a bike tire, if you don’t click HERE. Andrew’s dome tool is a clever way to use a bike wheel as a light painting tool, but that leaves the question WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE BIKE!?! A few weeks back Light Painter John Griffin shared a new light painting contraption with me that he had been working on, after picking myself up off the floor I found out John is call this contraption the SpiroJib and it is F@!$ing amazing. I think its a tool the community is gonna be pretty excited about, I can see it even starting a mini Light Painting Evolution for the DIY light painters out there.

Inspired by the Light Painting Photography contest themed Kinetic Light Painting, John set out to build a camera rig that would take camera rotation to a whole new level. Quickly the camera rig morphed into building the world’s first standing Light Painting Spirograph called the SpiroJib! The SpiroJib is a mechanical masterpiece made from the various pieces parts of a bike. The way it works is you chop a bike frame, weld a couple of sprockets, attach a “Light Bar”, throw in some ball bearings, run a chain around all of that, attach it on top of a light stand and power this beauty by hand cranking magic Light Painted Spirographs vertically in mid air!

Below are some samples of the same light illuminated while cranked around on the different sprockets.

I don’t think I need to tell you the endless possibilities that the SpiroJib brings to the Light Painting game, now whip the drool off of your keyboard and prepare yourself to get to work. The build of the SpiroJib is fairly complex and it will take some special tools and skill to build one but the good news is that John has created a detailed PDF available here, and he also made a detailed video walkthrough of the build itself (see below).

Below is the original version of the build video that might also be helpful, the video above is the updated version however the older one has great info too.

The giving spirit of the Light Painting Community never ceases to amaze me. John put a ton of work into creating the SpiroJib, the detailed PDF build guide and the Video. He did all of this work and he is giving it to all of us for nothing. I think I speak for the entire Light Painting Community when I say THANK YOU JOHN!

If you would like to see more of Johns work, ask him a few questions, or just say thanks check out his Facebook page HERE.

P.S. What is it with bikes and light painting tools?!?