This week, I had the opportunity to work with a whole new toolkit with the help of my friend, Dave. I ordered some stronger light sources, used different lighting methods, and shot with a Canon EOS R6 . For light sources on my body, I used these bands from Amazon. I placed them on my ankles, wrists, and on my hip. They were decently bright and they did seem to illuminate me pretty well in the dark.
Here are some JPGs with just the light bands. The aperture and ISO rating are both small and the shutter speeds vary from 5-15 seconds.
These first images only use LED bands as the light source. This turned out great, considering the images have not been edited at all to remove background noise. Next I wanted to illuminate myself more since I believe seeing my body draw the light image is the more impressive aspect of this project. In these next shots, I am illuminated with an external light source from multiple angles. For these photos, the aperture is higher which shrinks the lens diaphragm in order to compensate for the bright light sources.
f/14, 10 sec, ISO-100
f/18, 10 sec, ISO-100
f/18, 10 sec, ISO-100
f/18, 10 sec, ISO-100
I noticed that if I held one pose, then I became more defined. It’s difficult to tell what my body is doing, so here are some still shots with no LED bands.
So here are some of the things I learned this week and plans I have for the next weeks:
– 5 seconds of exposure is not enough time to pick up as much light as I would like. I will be working in the 10-15 second shutter speed range.
– I would like to further experiment with having an external light source. It is not necessary to achieve a clear image of myself, but I did like the greyscale effect it provided.
– I own a few 1100 lumen lights that can simulate a blacklight. I will try it out with neon clothing pieces.
– Since I am most clearly seen when I am still, I will test out moving around for the first half of the 10-15 second duration and then holding a final pose for the second half.
– I may black out my walls in the future, but there are still lots of variables I can work with before having to purchase more equipment.
– Most important is that I need to learn how to edit RAW files. Here you can see the drastic difference of working with a RAW file. The only illumination source I have is from the LED bands. I have to learn how to edit RAW files using a program such as Adobe Lightroom.