DSLR Photography Forum

I was at a mate's house yesterday. He likes gardening, and we started talking about taking a photo of one of his roses in the garden. Unfortunately it was night and the lighting options were limited.
So we ended up going outside, switching off all the outside lights and using just a candle for lighting - but we experimented with the technique of "painting with light" during long exposures. I was taking the shots while he was moving the candle around the rose. Initially we tried to keep the candle out of the shot, but it soon became obvious that leaving it in produced very interesting effects.

The examples below are all taken using the legendary EF 50mm f/1.8 prime lens. The candle was being moved around at a moderate speed... the kind of speed you would use if you were spray painting (perhaps a little faster).

While the combination of a flame and rose produces quite a striking image, it makes me cringe a bit because it feels cliche and a bit like its "talking loud but not saying anything". The kind of image I'd expect to see on the front of a really bad valentine's day card!
But for the purposes of a simple experiment, I think it worked really well. A handy little technique to keep up my sleeve for the occassional night shot that needs some fairly major spicing up.


50mm, f/2.8, 1 sec, 100 ISO.


50mm, f/8, 13 sec, 100 ISO.


50mm, f/6.3, 13 sec, 100 ISO.


50mm, f/8, 13 sec, 100 ISO.

This worked out great. I think they look very good. My favorite happens to be the one without the light streaks though, #1

Interesting technique - I read a magazine article about doing this on a large scale - with landscapes and dozens of manual flash fires during extremely long exposures - I have been waiting for the right time to try it - this is inspirational in that sense.

Although 3 and 4 are interesting experiments with technique, I don't think the streaks are unified with the subject. #2 on the other hand shows unity and it is my favorite.

Thnaks for posting this.

I have seen some picture with this technique and they are lovely like yours. The rose is a very nice motif for this sort of pictures. I like #1 and #2, but I think #2 is more beautiful because you have the stem, and the flower is partially in the shadows.

I personally don't like flowers in a black background, I feel them out of context, but in this case it is different. The technique makes it interesting, that is also why I like #2, the shadows in the flowers makes it in context, and let me guess/think, if the picture was taken in a terrace or in a garden or in a vase.

Neat trick. Thanks for noting it for us.
--Don

Very cool, Adrian! I've seen light trails before, but haven't seen it in conjunction with a stationary object. Awesome!

Nicely Done Adrian. I particularly like #2 and #3. Its framed very well with the light, and there is just enough of it that it seems electric without being overdone.

Thanks guys
This post was more just to give you some food for thought than me wanting feedback. I know there is nothing new in this technique, but still thought the images were worth sharing. I should point out that it is one of the more fun techniques to try, especially with the light trails in the picture. It was a challenge at times to move the candle around the rose without disturbing it in any way (particularly for #2).

I think #2 is my favourite for the reasons Toad mentioned, but the framing of #3 might provide a good novelty effect in some scenes...

#1 was a lovely sharp photo, but the composition and background make it fairly boring.

Oh, and Irma.. the rose was still growing outside on the bush in my friend's garden. We photographed it without cutting it. It was poking straight up at around head-height, while most of the other shrubs were around waist height, making it easy to isolate against a black background.