POV: Painting With Light Photography

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy | All Rights Reserved

Under the lockdown, and with limited opportunities to immerse myself in street photography (and certainly none whatsoever for travel), I've looked for other ideas to exercise my shutter finger. There's a ton of YouTube videos that offer creative ideas; some of which are truly interesting.

One of those ideas is what is called "painting with light photography"...which in its simplest form is nothing more than using a flashlight to light the object that you want to “paint”. The flashlight can be like a brush that smears the light on that object, or used to light a specific area/spot on the object. 

The latter is the technique I used for both examples.

The keys to successful results are a dark room, a tripod, one or two flashlights...and patient experimenting. I used a Leica M9 on manual, using the self-timer and a longish shutter speed. While the shutter opens, I illuminated the Buddhas for as long as it was open.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy | All Rights Reserved

I tried on other Buddhas that are monochromatic, and found that those with colors (especially red or gold) looked much better because the light enhanced the contrast between the colored areas and surrounding darkness.

For the upper frame, I used Leica M9 and a Voigtlander 40mm at 1/15th, 400 iso and opened at f1.6. For the lower frame, I used the same hardware but the lens wide open at f1.4.

I then used ON1 software to warm up the two frames, as the beam from flashlight is too blue for my liking.

My Work | Lockdown "Hallucinations"

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy | All Rights Reserved

What happens to this travel photographer used to documenting exotic locales and photogenic people during a seemingly endless lockdown due to a pandemic ? Well, for one thing...he starts hearing voices coming from his GFX50S and GFX50R cameras. Yes, whiny voices rebelling at the enforced idleness, and refusing to work on any nascent still life photography efforts.  The cameras' constant whining that they had been promised trips to Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong and even Tokyo during 2020, and that he was now reneging on these promises, started to affect his mental state...and he was now clearly hearing these whines. 

These 'hallucinations' -that's what they are- started when he was setting up the spices and props as per the above photograph. The cameras sullenly refused to work when brought in to photograph it. Their batteries were flat; their menus refused to show and the message was loud and clear; "you did not buy us for this! " they moaned. It's only the considerable pressure and threats of being ignominiously sold on eBay that made them do their job.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy | All Rights Reserved

As the travel photographer was busy preparing the second still life which involved an ancient Chinese water opium pipe, the GFX50S scurried to his side expressing an interest in being used for it, if and only if, it was allowed to take a puff or two on the pipe. The request was reluctantly granted (as it was still a minor), but the photo shoot was a success.

With the lockdown very possibly extending into the month of May, this photographer is bracing for continued resistance from the two Fuji GFX50 cameras that will still be strident in their disapproval at being used for still life photography instead of reveling in exotic places...but tempting them with a few puffs on the opium pipe might do the trick.

To be continued...