Painting with Light… sabers.
Whilst not just a clever(?) name, I do really enjoy shooting in darkness and playing with light techniques such as light painting and light graffiti. It’s one of the earliest creative photography techniques I loved to use during by first foray into learning Photography at Murdoch back in 2010, and something I unfortunately didn’t do much of until I started my Diploma at TAFE in 2021.
It wasn’t until towards the end of Semester 1 last year for Photo Basic that we were given an assignment about working with creative and advanced photography techniques, including light painting and graffiti. Whilst trying to come up with an interesting idea I got into the notion of freezing a subject with flash photography whilst having light graffiti surrounding them, a thing that would be difficult to achieve with light painting along as people move within a shot, and hit upon the idea that this would work with with a lightsaber.
I was surprised that after some researching I found only one image that even came close to what I wanted to achieve, it was a prom photo of a women in a dress just slightly swinging a lightsaber in a small arc, but nothing to same level as I wanted to achieve. Once I got my research together I pitched my idea to my lecturer, as it was slightly outside the scope of the assessment and needed approval, I set about creating some test shots.
After setting up the camera and guestimating the framing and focus, admittedly not super important as it was just proof of concept, I set up the camera to flash with a 2 second shutter speed after a 10 second delay by a remote trigger, this was mostly to allow myself to get into position. Nailing this was important to giving the models I would be working the most important instruction, pose first and then start moving when the flash goes off.
Admittedly my lightsaber spinning skills are beyond rusty, and I wasn’t exactly dressed for the occasion, but once I got this proof of concept I had something I could pitch to the person I knew would make this images better… Kaneda Cruz of Rebel Empire Workshops. This lead to another round of test shots with Kaneda onboard so we could really see if this would work with someone who knew how to work a lightsaber.
And after getting his trope together and in costume we managed to take the images in this portfolio and a great time was had by all and we got some great images… if only it was ever that easy.
By the time our schedules aligned it was starting to get into the colder parts of the year, and my inexperience with flash photography came to crowbar from behind. My flash absolutely crapped out in the cold but thankfully I had a spare which I was originally planning on using for fill light. Then the batteries, even the professionally fully charged ones, just kept crapping out on me due to the cold.
Regardless we managed to push on through but only with the help of everyone at REW who went far and beyond to help me with this project, and my appreciation for them knows no bounds.
I would love to revisit this shoot with a proper studio location and not on a dirt patch with the least amount of light imaginable, especially somewhere a little warmer then 12C so my equipment won’t crap out. Maybe sometime in the future.
S
