To get in the Halloween spirit, our team decided to go to a cemetery and came up with the idea to have a person look like they’re rising from a grave. How is this achieved? Painting with light, or in this case, speedlights with a red gel.
How it was made: at the beginning of the 30 second exposure, a speedlight with no filter hit the model with one flash. Then a speedlight to the left with a red gel fired multiple times while the model moved (the right of the frame). The trick was getting the red light to hit only the model as they moved up and not the ground. The previous tries at this photo had a dark red leaf covered ground due to the multiple fires of red gelled light hitting it multiple times.
In all honesty, I loved this experience. Painting with light is a challenge because there’s no “book” on it. It’s all about experimenting and adjusting and ‘getting back on that horse’ when the exposure doesn’t turn out just right. Being in a team environment was awesome because we had more hands to work with, and everyone had their own job. Not only that, but when we were problem solving how to get the shot we wanted, we have 7 photo brains to come up with a solution. I tell you what, I’m sure going to miss my team when I’m trying to make my own painting with light assignment. I think this photo took a minimum of 4 people to make. Makes me wonder what I can do with… well.. just my self and a model. Here’s to a new challenge!
Kaiti Grant 