During my recent trip to Las Vegas I ventured out to a photographer’s paradise called Nelson. This year I experimented with some light painting, something I’ve been wanting to try but hadn’t done yet.
I wandered into one of several old barns and saw these old motors and decided to set up for a shot. For those who don’t know, the term “light painting” refers to painting with light. In this case, a small LED flashlight. I’m shooting at night here, so the barn is completely dark until I add light with the flashlight. So, it’s kind of a creative painting type of effort as opposed to blasting light everywhere like what you’d get if you used regular flash or strobes. The camera is on a tripod and I'm using a long exposure, this was approximately 20 seconds. The long exposure gives you time to run around with your flash light while counting off the seconds in your head. Then you make mental adjustments for the light and do it again, and again, and again. I spent a couple hours playing in the dark and could have stayed all night. Each shot ends up being different which is part of the fun, at least it was for me.