Light painting tricks
► Plan your composition
In any garden there are likely to be plenty of good spots for this technique. Have a look around during the day and take a few test shots to work out a nice composition. Look for strong shapes, like a single flower, or seek out interesting trees, branches or other garden objects.
▲ Homemade light wands
You can buy all kinds of different lights and gizmos for light painting, but a simple torch and a few coloured plastic cups will do the trick. Here we stacked the cups on top of one another then used gaffer tape to attach them to the front of a powerful LED torch.
▲ Focus and lock
Autofocus can struggle in the dark and may hunt around, which can throw the scene out of focus. So focus on your subject using AF (you may need to shine your torch on the subject so the AF picks it up), then switch to manual focus to lock it in place.
▲ Set bulb
When setting up your exposure for light painting you have two options – you could set the shutter speed to give you up to 30 secs or, if this isn’t enough, set the camera to Bulb mode instead. This means the shutter will stay open for as long as we like.
▲ Lock open the shutter
Either use your phone or a cable release to begin the bulb exposure. Our exposure times ranged between 30 and 90 secs. Use a stopwatch if you like, or you could just count in your head – timings needn’t be exact as the torch is the dominant light source here and the dim ambient light will barely register.
► Time to paint
Time is a big factor in light painting – it’s not just about where you wave your torch, but also the speed at which you do so. If you linger the torch over part of the scene for longer, then the light will build up more, and the area will become increasingly brighter. Experimentation is key.