STEP BY STEP / Livin’ on a flashlight

1 Gather your kit

We’re using two Shadowhawk Tactical X800 Flashlights bought from Amazon – these have adjustable power and strobe settings – and we’ve taped pink and blue plastic over the ends. We also bought a couple of hollow acrylic tubes from ebay and tucked the torches inside.

3 Trigger the camera

With your Nikon on a tripod, you’ll need a friend to press the shutter release for you while you move the light rods around your subject. If you don’t have an extra pair of hands, grab a wireless remote shutter release to use while you dance the light rods around.

5 Maximize your light

We used an aperture of f/2.8 to maximize the light coming into the lens and bumped our ISO to 320 as we were getting underexposed images at ISO100 with the shutter speed on Bulb mode. We achieved around 4‑6 seconds of exposure, but it varied each time we shot.

2 Wrap up the light

We knew that the rod wouldn’t light up much if it was clear, so we wrapped some greaseproof paper around it to help diffuse the light better, creating a more defined rod of light. If you have problems with flare coming from the top of the rod just cap it over with some gaffer tape.

4 Use Bulb mode

Once you’ve composed your scene to leave space in the frame around your subject, set your Nikon to Manual mode and adjust the command dial until your shutter speed reads Bulb. Now your exposure will last as long as the shutter release button is depressed.

6 Flashdance

Start on the left, then during the exposure move across, around and behind your subject, then ensure you’ve left the frame on the right before doubling back, camera‑ right, to create a U shape. Starting and stopping like so ensures light is on the front of your subject.