It's been a few years since I've done any light painting so I was a bit rusty. Thankfully my girls' former dance teacher was up for some fun and agreed to come play. This is one of those projects that begs for a sequel so I think we'll finish it another day when I've made some even better tools than the ones we threw together tonight.
This shoot involved a lot of running, jumping and miscellaneous prancing which were just the parts my little brother Mark and I were taking turns doing. Thank goodness I had a professional do the pretty dance posing parts.
We should have had more ambient light but we didn't. This was skating by the blue lights* taped under his board and the occasional action freezing flash that would blind him at the height of his tricks. Not the best idea we've had but when has that stopped us. Fortunately my brother Matt French (did I mention he's turning 40 next year) didn't break his arm when he landed full weight on it and I only got a flying board smashed into my thigh and not my face during this shoot.
Click here for photos from our last skateboarding/light graffiti shoot two years ago.
*The red glow behind him in the second shot is the pile of multi-colored LED lights we chose not to use.
Heather was such a trooper to come on this "fun shoot"! We couldn't have picked a colder day! Everyone behind the camera was wearing warm jackets and other warm gear as the cold rain leaked into the basement where we were shooting. With as much water was coming through the basement ceiling you can only imagine how much was hitting the roof three stories above that. We wrapped this shoot around my kitchen table drinking huge mugs of hot cocoa.
Matt said he needed a head-shot for an upcoming project so I told him he could stop by a site I was checking out for an upcoming shoot. What started out as just a preliminary shoot for another project, turned into a really fun shoot of it's own! I tried out some light painting with some LED "brushes" I created and amazingly enough, Matt was able to stand still for twenty second exposures! We also had a lot of fun using all of the water accumulated in a recent rain storm, as a giant mirror and puddle for splashing his skateboard through. I could probably shoot there all day if it wasn't so cold and wet!
