Truly "capturing" the light tonight!

I am so excited tonight! I attended class again this weekend and was so disappointed to have missed the previous one. The pictures produced were absolutely amazing and so much fun!! I walked out feeling inspired and frightful that I would not be able to do the job...to catch up. And if you know me, you know Ii am a student that does not like to be behind the curve!

So here goes. Tonight I tried to paint with light!  Yay! At first I couldn't get it. I had covered the windows and the tv and clocks, but just couldn't get it. I thought it was the flashlight and tried a lighter but burned my fingers :(  Turns out it wasn't the flashlight at all. Keep reading...you'll see what was causing me to have more light in the room than I wanted.  Here is one of the examples of too much light.

Now in order to paint with light you have to have several things. First you need a camera that can slow it's shutter speed to literally SECONDS...mine is set at 8 seconds for these pics. The seconds is how long you are exposing the "film" to the light.  You need to capture it all!  Then you probably need a tripod or very steady setting (ledge or chair or something STEADY) and remote. Although for these, I set the timer and walked across the room (suggest removing all obstacles as tripping is NOT fun). Third you need your light source (not recommending the lighter :)  Finally you need a really DARK room...REALLY dark. The above picture was BEFORE I realized the mirror was reflecting the light and ruining my dark room...sooooo I covered it with a dark sheet.  And these are some of the results.

That's painting with light!!!  Yay!!!