What is “Light Painting”?

There are lots of ways to do light painting, ranging from the very simple to more complex. You can put a light inside or beside something, like the photo of the old truck. Nick Smith used a light with a red gel filter inside the truck. Gel filters are inexpensive and stick to your light, then peel off easily. Or you can use a flashlight with colored filters; using a long exposure and “paint” over parts of the subject with a flashlight. You can also use a Camera Shoe Cord so you can take your flash off camera. Combine that with colored filters for the flash and you can get some neat lighting effects. They come in 3 ft. and 10 ft. lengths and are not expensive. You can even light paint with sparklers. Use your imagination and have fun!

Nick does some excellent light painting photos and panoramas. He also had a unique approach to black and white photos.

Meet Nick:



I have always been into photography, even in the film and darkroom days, now with digital photography and more time to pursue photography I am enjoying it much more. Digital is the best thing that ever happened to the creative interests inside me, and must add I am a former oil painter, and this adds to the way I see landscapes and photo composition.

I love landscapes in all the four seasons, and the old barns with their wood textures and old trucks sitting in a grassy covered terrain. I like to compose with the camera, meaning get the shot, then with Lightroom and Photoshop and filters like Topaz, NIK, and On1, you can turn your photo into never before possible works of art. A great technique I use lots is to duplicate the image in Photoshop, go to edit in NIK Silver and render it as a black and white image. Now with the black and white image on top, I put a mask onto it and with the brush tool remove all the b/w of the subject (old truck) and let the color show through, this gives it so much more interest and shows the texture of the subject.