Susan Magnano: Getting Creative with Light Painting Portraits | #BHDoF 2022

My name is Susan Magnano, and I'm so excited to talk to you guys about getting creative with light painting portraits. I've been a professional photographer for over 20 years. I started by doing photojournalism and portraiture, so I love telling stories through my images. I also travel around the world teaching photography workshops, and not only are we chasing the best light throughout the day, we're creating amazing light at night, which brings me to my Luminescent Portrait series, which uses light painting to create amazing images and blend my passion for portraiture and night photography. So today I'm going to teach you guys the tips, tricks, and techniques to create beautiful, amazing light painting portraits. So let's get started. So what is light painting? Light painting is a photography technique when you use a handheld light source to shine light on your subject, or you use the light to draw in a scene while doing a long exposure. So today I want to empower you all to get out there and light paint. So we're going to discuss what gear to use, settings, techniques, the process, and even have an on-location demonstration. So let's talk about gear. First you're going to need a camera. You can use a DSLR, a mirrorless, even a smartphone if they have a long exposure feature. Then I recommend using a wide-angle lens. The reason for this is because I really like to tell a story with my images, and I like capturing the location. Next you'll definitely need a tripod, and I love my Benro tripod. Remote triggers are super helpful so you can trigger your camera from behind your subject. Speedlites are great for freezing action and also illuminating my subject. I use the Profoto C1 Plus to illuminate my background, but also it has an amazing feature to strobe as well as be a constant light source. The Luxley Fiddle is one of my favorite LED light painting tools for illuminating my background. The reason for this is because it changes so many different colors and brightnesses. So even when I want to do really long exposure it goes down to one percent so it won't overexpose the background that I'm light painting. When choosing a flashlight I recommend getting one that's at least a thousand lumen and has different brightness modes so you can dim it down. Also I recommend getting one that has a strobe mode because that's a really fun feature to light paint with. And if you plan on doing tube light painting, which we're about to jump into, it's really helpful if it has a pen clip. Now this is the most important slide of them all. First take a screenshot so you have my contact information so you can learn about my upcoming workshops on my website. Next email me if you'd like my free gear guide that walks you through all my tools. And most importantly scan the QR code to enter a contest to win the Luxley Fiddle that will be given away at the end of this event. Now for the fun stuff. I'm excited to share with you some ideas to inspire you to create your own light painting tools. Like I said earlier I want you to get started light painting tonight and here are some tools I know you have laying around your house. So you can get started by grabbing a flashlight, rolling up some parchment paper, and making your own light tube. Then finish off that Sprite you're drinking, stick a flashlight in it, and then you have this great green light source to create some cool patterns with. Grab those sparklers, holiday lights, and even glow sticks from the attic and start experimenting. Lastly I want to talk about the TA tube which is a hollow plastic tube used to protect office lights and is easy and cheap to purchase off Amazon. They offer endless possibilities once you shine a flashlight through them. I'm going to show you some of these techniques later on. Lightpaintingbrushes.com has an amazing starter kit that has all my favorite tools. In this picture to the right I was using a black fiber optic brush with a red gel to create that fiery look and I was using a light blade with a flashlight on strobe mode to create that black and white pattern. If you're looking to buy a quality light tube check out Eric Prairie's tubes at lightpainting.store. He sells a great beginner kit that has my favorite tubes and great accessories. Eric was the founder of the tube tribe and was also the first to create light painting with tubes. His work is next level. Let's talk about basic settings. First we're going Then we're going to put it in manual mode or bold mode. Bold mode is for when you want to shoot longer than 30 seconds and you'll need either a remote trigger or an app to trigger your camera. White balance you can start off by starting at 4200 and adjusting it based on the lights that you're shooting in your picture. Then we're going to turn off our long exposure noise reduction. We're going to turn off our lens stabilization because we're on a tripod and then we're going to consider our settings. Settings are location dependent so my settings for a cityscape for some Milky Way portrait are going to be very different. So let's look at the cityscape. I shot at five seconds f 5.6 at 100 iso. So the first thing you do is expose for the background. So I did for the cityscape and then I had to make sure it was fast enough because of all the ambient light. I didn't want my models to move so I chose five seconds so they could stay still for at least five seconds while I painted. When I'm thinking about the Milky Way photography it's very different. There's no ambient light and I'm exposing for the Milky Way. So because the Milky Way is so faint I just shoot at iso 3200 f 2.8 and at least 20 seconds to get those stars. I had my model stay in place the whole time and then I only shine light on them for maybe two seconds so that's why there's no blur with them. And I had to use a very dim flashlight so it did not overpower the picture. So I want to briefly go over how aperture shutter speed and iso are affecting your light painting portraits. So aperture is a hole that lets the light in which controls the rate of the flow of light. Aperture also controls the brightness of artificial light. What we're looking at here is four swipes of a video light in front of my camera and I had the constant settings of iso 100 in five seconds and all I adjusted was my aperture. And as you can see as I adjusted my aperture the light source got dimmer and dimmer. So in this slide I adjusted the shutter speed. As we know shutter speed controls the amount of light over time. Shutter speed also controls the ambient light. So with constant settings of iso 100 and f 5.6 I adjusted the shutter speed. And it may be hard to tell but the ambient on the last two you can kind of start to see my room being lit up. But you can see that the light source is actually consistent. So shutter speed did not affect the artificial light. So let's talk about iso. Iso controls the sensitivity of the sensor. It also affects the brightness of both the artificial and the ambient light. So we have the constant settings of f 6.3 in five seconds and all we adjusted was the iso. And as you see we raise the iso we are getting a brighter light source and more ambient light. So in conclusion your flashlight brightness is controlled by aperture and iso and your ambient brightness is controlled by shutter speed and iso. So you're almost ready to start light painting but I do recommend doing a location check. And that requires you to scout during the day. A is much easier to find a composition during the daylight hours. Also it's good to find out if it's safe in the cities or if you're in the wilderness. It's good to understand if there's any obstacles or anything you should be on the lookout for. In terms of obstacles you're going to be running around in the dark probably with a light saber or a light painting tool. So make sure you check your path is going to be clear. Then I recommend setting up a parameter and this involves maybe putting some stones or putting some markers on the ground to know what your framing is for your camera so you don't actually run out of your frame. Most importantly look for light interference like street lights or building lights or even traffic that may not even be near you but as they turn a curve the lights may shine on the spot that you just picked out. So this is really important because constant light is really going to greatly affect your light painting portrait. You really don't want to have any constant light hitting your model's face because if there's any slight movement during the long exposure you'll get some blur. So if you're in an area dark enough to shoot the stars and the moon I recommend using the app called PhotoPills. You can find out the path of the moon by using their augmented reality feature and this is super helpful when you're planning out your shot. You don't want to have the moonlight on your model's face and I typically put the moon behind my model and use it as an element in my scene. I also like to know where the star trails are so then I can do two pictures like this one. This is the only composite in my slideshow. First I shot the star trails then I composited it with my foreground which was my light painting. So let's get started with the process. First we expose for the background then we focus on the model and I typically focus by turning on a flashlight if I need to, using automatic focus, nailing the focus and then putting it into manual mode. I do a test exposure of the ambient light. I make sure my light painting tools are organized and easy to access. Then I do another test exposure with my added lights and I adjust accordingly. So here's the process. So step one I expose for the background then step two I lit up the background elements that I wanted to feature. So I wanted to see this truck pop a little bit more so I put a light inside the truck and I used a blue Luxley Viola to light up the front of it. So then I added the model. I made sure she was in focus and then I started light painting and you can see the tools that I used on the lower left hand side. I used a light painting tube with the flashlight in it and then I used the Luxley Viola to light up the front of the car and if I needed to I adjusted the brightness and then I experimented and this was our final shot. What I love about light painting is you're constantly experimenting and trying new things. So let's build another photo. First we're going to expose for the background and then we're going to add low-level lighting. Low-level lighting is when there's a stationary light source that stays on during the duration of a photo. The reason for using it here is for consistency and also it's one less thing to light paint as we run around. We use the Luxley Fiddle at five percent brightness and let it slowly expose over the duration of the photo. This is different from when we're doing light painting where we're typically using a brighter light source for a shorter amount of time. Next we added in our models. As you can see for our tools on the side we have the Luxley Viola which is featured inside the church. We have the light painting tube which we use to circle our subjects and the flashlight inside. The reason why there's a green rim is because there was a green piece of tape on the edge of the tube. So we continued to experiment. We turned the Luxley blue inside the church and then we picked up a tube with a red gel inside of it and at the end of the red tube was a white Kleenex and the Kleenex was to prevent the light from spilling outside of the tube. But we also used a speed light and we pointed the speed light back at the camera and we hit the test button repeatedly to create the fairy lights. So let's create another photo. We're going to expose for the background and this time we lit up the background elements with a Profoto C1 plus with gels on it. We also used a different technique to light up our model. We use what I like to call a scanner technique. The scanner technique is when you have a light source that has a narrow spread of light and you could bring it close to your subject and scan them from their head to their toe. I use this technique mainly when I don't want to get any light on my background. Lightpaintingbrushes.com sell a light painting scanner called the portrait light. This is the same location with just a different light painting setup. So I want you guys to see the versatility of how you can make different light painting pictures with just changing your tools. So the fire in this one is created with a black fiber optic from lightpaintingbrushes.com that has a red gel on it and just by shaking it around you get this amazing fiery effect. We lit the background with the Nanlite and then we also used the light scanning technique on the model's face. Light painting makes everyone into a rock star. This is my friend Abe who joined us on a B&H workshop at Nelson Ghost Town. We thought he would look cool on an old bike but with light painting we were able to make him look even cooler on a bike with flames. While teaching a workshop in Death Valley we wanted to create some unique shots so we had our friend Alex pose on the dunes for us. We utilized the bright moon as a rim light then used a light tube to create a light pattern behind her and finished with a flash from the speed light onto her face. Light painting reflections are the best. While leading a photo walk in Central Park we had our model pose next to the pond to get a reflection. We used Eric Pare's milky orange tubes to add a bit of flair. I love Burning Man because I walk around like a light ninja using light painting to really connect with people and capture their energy and vibe in a unique way. To create this shot I started with the flashlight on strobe mode. I put it in the light tube and started my light painting from behind the camera. I moved the light tube in a sweeping like motion to get the pattern on the ground. Then I moved behind him and did the circle and worked my way back. Then I used the speed light at a 45 degree angle to illuminate his face. In this picture we used a couple different techniques. One I like to call stadium lighting. It typically involves shooting a speed light three times. One at a 45 degree angle from the model's face and two from behind to give the illusion that they're in some sort of stadium. The third light in this picture is actually a street light. And then we used a light graffiti technique where we started at the center of the frame and we basically put the flashlight on the ground like it was chalk and drew circles around the model to create interest on the foreground. We wanted to capture the essence of Mexico's Day of the Dead so we had a model dress up like a Katrina. We loved the facade of this old church and we wanted to use the red tube like it was an extension of her dress and that she was almost floating. Here's another variation of that same shoot. You don't always need to shoot wide and you can create interesting backgrounds when there are none but light painting. Nothing is better than a Milky Way romance and I met up with Brianna and Tanner at 3 a.m. in the morning to hike to this viewpoint. To create this fire effect you need a pancake whisker, steel wool, and a rope. Tie the rope onto the whisk. You put the steel wool into the whisk and then you light the steel wool on fire and then it'll start to smolder and as you start spinning the rope the flames will start sparking. I only recommend doing this if you have a fire extinguisher or if you're in an area where there's no chance of anything catching on fire. Safety first. Everyone loves a challenge including my friend Dada who was keen on standing on one leg for this 15 second exposure. I doubted him but boy did he prove me wrong. In this photo we used Eric Paret's milky orange tubes with my flashlight on strobe mode and a pink pixel whip whipping around him to create that smoky effect and at the very last moment we stood at a 90 degree angle and did a speed light flash to the side of his face. When you don't have a model don't despair. You can use yourself. In this photo I set up a nan light on hue loop mode which turns all different colors and what I did was I moved to three different locations and stayed in place for three seconds just long enough to burn myself into the image. This is a long narrow reflection pool at a local botanical garden. If you look closely you may even see a coyote jumping out to get light painted. Okay maybe not but this is one long exposure with my friend Sarah and I moving in unison to three different spots. We had the camera in bold mode so we could take our time. The way it worked was we'd walk to one location. She would strike her pose. I did my light painting pattern. I turned off my flashlight in my light tube. We moved to the next location. She struck her pose. I turned on my flashlight in my light tube. Did my pattern. Turned off the flashlight. Moved to next location. Did the last pattern. My friend Eric was also on the top of the bridge doing a cool light painting pattern as well. What I love so much about this picture is the symmetry of the circles and her poses. She really nailed it. Here's another variation of the scene but this time I did a windshield wiper movement with the light tube. So the windshield wiper movement is just how you imagine it. Moving the tube like a windshield wiper back and forth. So in this photo I did a sideways windshield wiper and I started from behind the camera and walked my way towards my friend Sarah. I did a circle around her and then I did the windshield wiper all the way back. When you start your light painting pattern from behind your camera work your way towards your subject and then come back. It really creates depth and dimension. I included this photo to share the beauty of flowing and experimenting. Understanding how movements patterns and shapes form is half the fun of creating. The more you practice and see your creations it becomes muscle memory for you to repeat. Enjoy the process. Light painting with friends is always more fun and I have to give credit to all my wonderful friends who've helped me to create the images you've seen today. These are my new friends who are flow artists. Flow art is an art form that integrates dance and movement with light tools and props. They introduced me to an led hula hoop from hula labs which is so fun and the patterns it creates are so intricate and beautiful. They helped me to see my light painting techniques and moves are also a form of creative dance. If I can name my dance moves it would be called the electric late night stumble. For all the times I stumble while light painting but make it into a cool pattern. They also introduced me to a light whip by fireflies. The colors change it's so much fun to experiment with and the one thing I've learned is to keep on trying new moves and techniques. Today you are only seeing the great shots but to get those shots there were a few well maybe 3, 10, 20 that were just okay or good but don't be disappointed if they weren't perfect because you're always learning from each shot. You're building on each technique. So each time I go out and create I try and learn something new and I challenge you all to do the same. Now it's time to put this all together so you can see the magic happen in real time. So we're ready to get started with our first light painting picture of night. It is plenty dark enough so let me show you real quick what's going on with my camera. I'm shooting with the new Olympus OM-1 and what's cool about it is there's a live comp feature and what that means is it's going to take one base exposure and you can make anything from 0.5 to 60 seconds and then it's going to take an additional exposure where it stacks in all the artificial light. So this is perfect for light painting and the best part is you can watch it happening in real time. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to expose for our environment. We're in a beautiful environment here. We have the snow caps, the sals which are amazing mountain range. We also have these beautiful red rocks and it's all being lit by an almost full moon. So we want to get all these elements into a picture. So I did a couple test exposures and I decided that 10 seconds at 2.8 at 400 ISO would be the perfect settings and the reason I chose those was because we have to shoot sort of fast because the moonlight is a constant light source. We don't want that to affect our models even if they move a little bit. So we have to keep it kind of quick at 10 seconds. Next 2.8 we want to let in a lot of light and 400 ISO was kind of the ISO to make it all balance out. Because we're shooting with the Olympus we're going to have to put it in the live comp mode which is like a live bulb mode. So the 10 seconds is only going to be for the first base exposure. Then after that it's going to be in bulb mode but remember in bulb mode it's only exposing for the additive light we're adding. So one other tip when you go out to light paint is to wear black. The reason for this is you kind of want to blend in with the background but since it's very cold today I had to put my coat on and I know I will not be seen in the picture because a I'm fast like a ninja but also there will be no additive light hitting me during the scene. I'm creating all the light and I'm going to make sure no light actually hits me. Also I'm going to be really moving around a lot so I won't be standing in one place long enough to register in the frame. The first thing we're going to do is create a circle around our beautiful models and create a silhouette. So first we're going to turn it on. I put it in live comp mode and you can see also the coolest thing about this camera it has a night mode so you could actually see in nighttime really really well in the nighttime. So it is in live comp mode which you can see right there and we're going to take our first exposure. So when you press the button it's going to be the base exposure and then after that I put the base exposure for 10 seconds. So we're going to ask a couple to stay very still. We're going to turn off all the light and I'm going to count them down. So are you guys ready? Great so let's do it. So we're going to stand directly behind our subject, put our arms out straight, make sure our hands are facing down and create a circle like this and the most important thing is that you keep it centered in the circle or else you're going to end up with an oval and not a circle. So it'll look just like this. Great. For the second shot we're going to do is we're going to create the windshield wiper effect into the circle and out of the windshield wiper effect. So let's start our camera and for demonstration purposes I'm going to leave the light on just so you can see what we do. Ready? Action. I'm going to start on the side here. I'm going to start up the tube and I'm going to do circle and then windshield wiper, windshield wiper, windshield wiper, off. Another really cool effect to do is to start from behind your camera and do the windshield wiper from there. So you're creating this great perspective. Let me show you what it's like. So I'm going to turn on my camera, start the shutter and I'm going to create this effect where I'm just doing the windshield wiper, windshield wiper, windshield wiper, windshield wiper, circle and then back I'm doing the windshield wiper, windshield wiper, windshield wiper and it creates an amazing perspective giving depth and interest to your photos. The next shot I'd like to create is a circle but we're going to add some flash to our subject. So I'm going to do something with the speed light. So what I do here is I use the speed light and I put it in the manual mode. I have the power on one eighth power. I have a grid on because I want to narrow the beam and what I'm going to do is I'm going to make sure the angle of light is at 45 degrees and I typically like to point it at the woman's face because the woman is always more important in the photo. So we make sure the light looks good on her and the guy will always look great too. So I'm going to come at 45 degree angle. So first I'm going to do my lighting and then I'm going to create something that I like to call stadium lighting. So I go behind them and I fire lights on both corners of them to create a rim light. So let's walk. I'm going to walk you through this. So we're going to start our exposure and we're going to go. So first I'm going to go here. I'm going to pop a light. Perfect. Then I'm going to run around the back, pop another light, run around this side, do one more light. Great. And then I'm going to do the circle. Awesome. Great. One of my favorite photos to create is one that involves fire. And you may not always be able to create fire on location, but you can always use fiber optics. So today I'm going to be using this black fiber optic from lightpaintingbrushes.com with a red gel and it creates this amazing illusion of fire when you shake it like this. And I'm going to be using another technique called light scanning. And what that involves is taking a PVC pipe, cutting a hole in it, putting parchment paper on it, or just using any device that has a black back. So the light is only facing forward and light scanning your subject. The reason why I do this is I don't want any light spill on the background. So it creates a really, really interesting light just when you're able to light the subject's face and not have it go everywhere. So let's get started with this one. First thing I'm going to do is I'm going to do the light scanning of my model's face. So let's get started. We're going to start at the top, work our way down. And then because it's such a narrow beam, I'm going to work my way up and kind of go off. You don't really want to light paint their faces twice because even if they moved within that second, you might get a weird double exposure. So I only try to do it once and make sure I just get the area on that one stroke or even take a step back to make the light source a little bit broader. Then I'm going to start with the fire. So I'm going to start down at the ground and I want it to look like there's fire coming from underneath them. And it's kind of funny, it probably tickles, but by doing this shaking technique, it creates what looks like flames. I'm going to make sure I go behind their heads too and make sure I come around them a little bit, shaking it all over, ending on the ground and giving that illusion that it came from the ground. Oh my god, awesome shot. This whole night has been spectacular and I hope that you guys have been inspired to go out there and do your own light painting, whether it's with your homemade tools or one that you buy online. It is just so much fun and if you guys want to join me on a photo adventure, follow me at photoadventures.com or on my Instagram, Susan underscore Magnano. And I look forward to seeing what you guys create. Once again, I need to thank Quincy and Comrade. Thank you guys, you guys rock! Thank you guys and once again, go out there and create. Thank you B&H for having me and I'll see you guys soon. Join me as we light the night on our photo adventures. I'll be leading night workshops here in New York City this month. And after, you can find me in some of the world's most beautiful locations, from Sedona to the Sierras, Acadia, Nova Scotia, even Africa, and many more. Check out my website at Fotoadventures.com for more information. I hope to see you in the dark!