How-To: Light Art

Light art, or light photography, is one of my favorite. I love the abstract aspect of it. I love how easy it is. I love that you can do it in your own home.

What light art is: a form of visual art where main media of expression is light.
What that means: in a dark environment, you take your camera, and some light. The light can be just a flashlight, a glowstick, any shape, and color, any size. You take a photo at a very slow shutter speed, move the light in your desired shape or design, and viola, youve got light art.

Light art has become very popular recently, and people are getting really creative with it. A Google image search brings up tons of amazing pictures.
Here are some of my favorites:

Image by: Gizmodo

Image by: LAPP

Image by: Signes de Luimiere

Light art doesnt always have to have people in it, a lot of it is just shapes and designs.

You can really go anywhere you want to take these kind of photos, as you can see some of these photos are outside. You just want to make sure youre in a dark enough environment that your image wont be over exposed. Since youre working with a slow shutter speed, if its too light outside, your image is also going to be too light.

For these example photos Im shooting in my bathroom, since its the only room in the house that doesnt have windows, and its about 11 am. I also tried covering the window in the computer/art room, some photos still turned out a little bright from the small amount of window not covered though. Heres some examples of photos I took:

(for these photos I shot on: bulb  - F29 - ISO 3200)

[I used a timer remote and held it in only as long as I moved the light]

As you can see some pictures came out better than others. Some I had to edit to darken the background. But really, light art isnt about trying to get everything exactly perfect, for me anyway, its about having fun and creating cool images. 

Remember: dont be afraid to  experiment, think outside of the box, and most of all have fun!

Keep on shooting :)

Disclaimer: All photos are mine, unless otherwise stated. All opinions are my own. No monetary exchange occurred in exchange for this post.