Painting a Cabin

It was super warm in Bozeman today, almost 22 degrees!

Celsius*

Which is mid 70s F.

So tonight I went out light painting because I could go and not be all cold and miserable! I just had to watch out for bears and mountain lions....so not much better...

There is a cool little cabin thing on Peat's Hill for warming up during the winter. (it had no door though?) It's in a cool little spot and has a nice interior, so I decided to do a quick little painting of it. I didn't go all out on this one, just lit a few areas and called it good. I could have gone crazy but...sleeeeppp. I like what I go anyway. I'm trying to be a little simpler with things lately, I feel I over complicate a lot.

Anywho...

I began by setting my camera up. I used f6.3, ISO160, and 15 second exposure. It was pretty bright out so I didn't need that much. That time gave me time to paint too.

I started off with using my Maglite to throw some white light on the sides of the cabin and on the roof. I used my hand as a gobo to shape the light and put it exactly where I wanted it to go. Just a quick splash of light from a flashlight like this is a lot, so most of the exposure I wasn't painting. My red head lamp made some really cool glow too, it was random but cool.

For the interior I did something different. I shined both lights on the ground and walked past the camera to make a trail of light to the cabin, then hid in a corner inside. I moved my head lamp back and forth against the back walls, and followed that with my Maglite on the ceiling. This gave a red glow softened by the brown glow reflecting off the ceiling with my white Maglite. I had to do this a couple times to get it right, but it made some awesome effects.

That's what so great about light painting. You just play around and make awesomeness!

In Ps, I made layer masks for everything to composite it. I mostly used a big brush at 30% opacity to paint things in. It's a pretty simple deal once you start and only took about 5 minutes. I then applied some sharpening with a high pass filter technique (I've talked about this a lot) and then moved over to Lr.

In Lr, I painted in an adjustment brush in the sky to raise the clarity and highlights. This brought out the stars and made them pop more. I also added some split toning. Blue to the shadows, orange to the highlights. Just made it have less of an orange street light glow which I passionately hate.

So why is my picture off level? Well, it helps the mood. Sometimes tweaking level or perspective can give a picture the mood or emotion you're trying to capture. For this image, I was trying to make that inviting felling with the warm glow and lit pathway, but it was also kind of a creepy place. That's why I left the window from a house in the background, and have the black legs in the foreground. Also why I left the image not straightened. It just gives it that feeling of uneasiness that building has.

See you tomorrow!