Actually Did It

I tried my idea from the other night with the tea kettle. Many times I've had an idea while writing, and said I'd try it one of these days, but tonight I actually did! What an achievement.

If you don't remember, my idea was to light paint the kettle instead of lighting it with strobe. Surprisingly, it worked out almost exactly as I thought it would. Got some awesome light trails and cool reflections on the kettle! And, just as I thought, the steam is gone :( Motion blur was just too much for it. It could have been brought back with some strobes, but that wouldn't go with the light painting idea, now would it?

So how did I do the light painting? I set the camera to f/8, ISO100 and 10s shutter. In my room, with a black background and the lights off, the ambient light wouldn't effect the exposure at all. Only the light from my iPhone makes any effect.

It sounds a bit immature, but I pretty much just waved my phone around during the exposure. There's a little thought that has to go in, like having the light pointed the right way, and making sure you light the whole thigh right, but really its just a random motion. I ended up doing two exposures, one where I mostly lit the front of the kettle, and one where I did a lot of side lighting on the handle and edges.

For editing, I just blended the two photos together in Lr with the lighten blending mode, and converted to b/w. That's really all though... It was a really simple photo, but very awesome! It's so dramatic for a picture of a kettle.

See you tomorrow!