P#42: Light Paints a Stone Garden Pathway

Painting with Light

David Tejada: The next one is just light painting. This is in my backyard. I thought, "I think I'd like to try some light painting. It seems like a fun thing to do."

This was shot with the D70 and I have a 20 mm lens on it. It's a vertical shot obviously. I'm kind of pointing down with it, looking down on the stepping stones, walking through my backyard out to this field in the backyard. The sun had set, maybe 30 minutes prior to taking this, so it was quite dark out. (click the image for a larger version)

I stopped down my lens to about F22 or as far as it would go. Then I opened the shutter. I placed it on bulb so I opened the shutter and walked out into the scene with a one million powered candle flashlight and I lit every one of those stones as I walked along the left-hand edge of the path. I would just go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom hitting every one of those stepping stones.

Then when I got up to the fence, I'm continually moving. I would pass my light off to the left-hand side along the boards, went on the right, did a little circle around each of the flowerpots and then painted the door of the gate as I was going out to the field, turned off the flashlight, walked back to the camera, and closed the shutter.

Now, I never recorded myself in the picture because I never stood still long enough to be recorded so I was able to move all the way through the picture without ever being seen.

Audri Lanford: Wow. I was really curious how you did this one.

David Tejada: I think of one of the very earliest photographs done this way was back in 1840, or I can't remember the shot exactly. It was in France, a picture of one man standing on the street corner with his foot up on a box.

He is the only person that appears in the photograph because he was the only one standing still long enough. His shoes were being shined and there were people walking up and down the streets. It's an old daguerreotype photograph.

You can do shots like Penn Station in New York in that way, make it like a pinhole camera and make it an eight or twelve hour exposure. Nobody is going to sit long enough to ever record themselves on film or on sensors. That's the same principle with this light painting. I never stood long enough in one spot ever to be recorded.

In Summary

It's amazing what you can do when you start playing with light. David Tejada's stone garden pathway is a perfect example of the power really dramatic lighting can have on a shot.