A Simple and Effective Lighting Technique
Photographer Jean-Francois O’Kane talks about painting with light while comprehensively demonstrating the techniques to follow for a sensual erotic shooting, as well as the tools and equipment needed.
As O'Kane demonstrates on his model Alexa, light painting is a creative photographic technique in which exposures are made in a darkened room by moving a hand-held constant light source to illuminate the scene. He moves the light to selectively illuminate and accentuate parts of the model's curves and highlights, by facing it directly into the camera. As viewers quickly learn, light painting requires a significantly slow shutter speed of a second or more-- besides that, to create a stunning photo, total control over exposure is essential, as is dressing in black and using a tripod and white balance.
Although O'Kane admits, "It's difficult to achieve perfect settings such as exposure on the first time around, "A prerequisite is to be prepared to experiment, use a light meter or grey card, and have fun while you are doing so."
Painting with light is indeed an exciting technique for amateur and professional photographers alike, and fairly simple to recreate. It offers photographers a chance to express their creative side, and artistic ability, perhaps to impress clients or simply to explore new photographic disciplines, and O'Kane demonstrates so with flowing ease, using the tools and equipment readily available from a house or garage, and with the camera equipment most photographers already have.
