Exterior painting with light

Abstract

There are so many different fields of photography in which to specialise nowadays This is why I decided to go into a field that is still relatively unexplored and unexploited and still has a lot of room for research and experimentation and that allows one the opportunity to be creative. My field is night photography or rather nightjpaint-with-light photography. Few people have ever stopped to think or realise how the night affects the everyday settings arround them. Things that are ugly and unappealing in the daylight may in the absence of light become attractive. The original cameramen were limited to existing light only, so the technique is not new, it has merely been rediscovered. It was during the "flashbulb seige" of the 1940's that photographers lost interest in existing light photography. With the advent of special chemicals and films, more and more people began to switch back to the use of natural lighting. The night photographer is almost totally dependent upon existing light (Woolley 1956:22). It is with the use of these natural light long exposures combined with the use of a flash light, or any other form of portable artificial light, that allows the photographer to be as creative as possible, allowing him even to capture the ellusive movement of the stars, causing them to make long streaks across the sky on the final image. This type of photography is created by using a double exposure, one for the sunset and another when it is dark, to allow enough time to paint with light and catch the movement of the stars. With the use of a flash or a strong hunting spotlight the photographer's light sensitive material (i.e.the film) is in a way converted into the artist's canvas because one can literally paint, or create, the desired image using coloured gels to create new colours or to enhance the saturation of the already present colours. The advantage in using a hunting spotlight over a flash is that the beam of the spotlight extends a distance of a few hundred meters so that one can paint the tops of trees and buildings and other inaccessable places. The beam of the spotlight is more easily directed than a flash, and thus the chance of getting a reflective image of the photographer in the photograph, which often happens when painting with flash, is greatly reduced when using a hunting spotlight. One of the greatest advantages to painting with one's own spotlight is that one developes a feel for most of the exposure times. It also means that one does not have to rely on available light sources of unknown intensity like flood or spotlights lighting up a building. One's own light source also means that one can go out of town where there are absolutely no lights on one's subject and still create an amazing shot. I WOUld, in fact, say that this is when one can be most creative, since the exposure can be anywhere between 15 minutes and 8-10 hours, giving one as much time as is needed to create almost anything that the film will permit and that the lights battery can handle. Most of the problems encountered during long exposures are in fact film emulsion orientated and therefore beyond the control to the photographer to a certain degree. Two of the main problems with these films are reciprocity failure and colour shifts, which will be discussed later in this script. These problems differ between negative and trannie film with the negative emulsion film being the more likely of the two to give problems. We as photographers can help the manufacturers by sending them results of our experimentation and research so that they may better understand the limitations of their film emulsions under long exposures. Hopefully they will one day produce a film that will eliminate these problems. Push or pull processing can also be used as an alternative method in dealing with the problems connected to these films This will also be discussed later in this script. I will also run through the list of basic equipment needed for exterior painting-withlight and exactly how everything works together. After that I will discuss six of my images and explain how they were achieved, with all the necessary log book references. I will finally discuss the work of a professional photographer, Obie Oberholser who is a very respected and famous photographer both nationally and internationally. It is Obie who I think initiated the whole exterior painting-with-light field of photography. An exterior photographer's possibilities do not end after sunset. Neither is he confined to the city limits or whereever else there are available light sources. Night time is a time that has been very neglected by photographers. I intend to change this by promoting this field and all its possibilities, since I feel that some interesting and beautiful images can be created in this low-light and no-light time of day.