The Phantom Lightpainters Trail
More experimentation in the local fields — with LED torch. I’m very interested in the possibilities of this technique and want to experiment with long exposure and mobile illumination a lot more frequently. This could yield some very interesting results in a snowy landscape.
Draw Down The Moon
The phantom light painter makes his mark in the night.
Light painting on Prestbury golf course —- very happy with these! An interesting and challenging night.
{ White Nancy, painted with light (LED Torch) and 20 second exposure at 100 ISO f5. Lens: Sigma 10-20mm. }
I have been planning this kind of thing for some time now and last Sunday the conditions were just about right. It was a fairly balmy night with a clear sky and a large and reasonably bright waning moon. I decided to ride up to Kerridge with all of my gear crammed into a back pack — not a very comfortable ride with a tripod and large camera on ones back but I just felt that I had to try my White Nancy light painting experiment. I took some flash shots too but they are much less interesting than these.
The photos were taken with a Nikon D80 which is probably not really the best camera for such long exposures, some have reported that they are very noisy above 1 second of activity due to the current hungry sensor heating up but these shots appear to be better than I had expected though they are not suitable for up-scaling and printing at any appreciable size unfortunately.
I enjoy light painting for a number of reasons, not least being out doors after dark but there is also something very interactive about it, the sense of actually working with the image as the camera is capturing it is very satisfying and creates a feeling of man and machine (camera) working in some new kind of harmony.
I recently tried a little “light painting” for the first time, for those not in the know light painting is a night photography technique where one illuminates the subject with a portable light source whilst the camera shutter is open on a long exposure or even ‘bulb’ setting. Obviously the camera needs to be mounted on a tripod for this. The idea is to control the pattern of illumination by literally ‘painting’ the subject with light. I used a powerful LED torch and a 10second shutter with f4 aperture. Some people thought the images were actually HDR (high dynamic range) processed. It is a very engaging technique, which introduces an element of direct physical interaction with the subject and gives a real sense of creative action, almost as if you are painting the image on to a canvas of night. I did my first experiments in St Peter’s churchyard Prestbury but would like to try the technique in even darker settings; possibly up in the hills, I have a secret location in mind.
This ‘blog’ diary may be migrating to a more state of the art (web 2) wordpress platform at the weekend — if I have the time to work with that. It does feel a little like the end of an era but I want to make my blog page(s) a little more dynamic and experiment with various feeds and such like.
The weather has been slightly more unsettled today with a little intermittent drizzle. Lighting conditions will still not permit me to undertake a few local photo experiments, which I have in mind; but things are bound to change soon.
Heading out of Bollington and deep into the night.
Last night I managed to do a full circuit of the Bollipot Loop without mishap — (mental note to self) must return Jane’s light! This time I had the good sense to take one of my cameras, actually a bit of a cop-out as I decided to take the little Sony w50 — which is still rather surprisingly good and allows a lot of creative latitude — no pun intended mind! Generally, it is not quite up to ultra low light exposures as the slowest shutter speed is about 2 seconds but it did allow me to capture some interesting deliberately shaky shots of lit objects and also carry out a little “light painting” with my bike lights. A kind of luminous abstract homage to the Bollipot Loop I think.
I seem to become ever more taken with Bollington every time I visit the place, the cosy sense of community, a certain down to earthiness and the general aesthetic of the architecture, which is both typically rugged and at the same time quirky and whimsical. Bollington is full of intriguing little details. The shear variety of cottage door designs and also the way that people decorate the stone lintels and a door surround is a very charming feature. Bollington does have some semblance of an active cultural life, which is contemporary and genuinely artistic.
Night Ride
light painting with LED bike lights on drystone wall Bollington.
Next I need to do the much more challenging trip up to Bakerstonedale and Charles Head where wind formed Scots pines and gorse bushes line the hilly high altitude roadsides. A landscape which can at times appear very surreal and cries out for my black and white treatment.
Since Farrow & Ball set up shop in Wilmslow I have noticed a steady return to more traditional paint colours and finishes on a lot of the local buildings. Prestbury is starting to look a little more colourful again with personalised but tastefully traditional paint applications on New Road instead of the universally applied and rather drab black and white timber work. I have noticed quite a lot of transformative activity in and around the village since I have been enjoying the luxury of extended free time, job in-betweening or whatever euphemism is currently in vogue for the inevitable down side of capitalist labour exploitation. The large swath of land behind Ford House (the village allotments during the war apparently) is currently being landscaped, no doubt for private use. This patch would make an excellent communal village green but I have an awful feeling that it is either going to get built on or turned into a car park — eventually. The old vicarage is all being done up and the charming features of Spencer Brook close to the start of the Vicarage drive way have all been enhanced and cleared of vegetation — or something? I can’t ever remember the stream feature down there but this may be because it was so overgrown.