Light painting is brand new to me, but I saw a few examples scattered about the Internet, and decided to try it last night.

Here are a couple of the better pictures:

And here’s how you do it:

Ingredients:
1. Camera that can be set to have a long shutter
2. Flashlight
3. Pitch Black Room

That’s it…

Ok, so if you’ve got all that, it’s easy. Put your camera in a stationary position, set the shutter speed for something long – like 30 seconds.

You don’t want anything screwing up your photo, so put a timer on it (to reduce camera shake from pushing the button) and turn off the flash.

When you start the shutter, you can begin to “paint” with light. You just shine the light on anything you want to show up in your picture. If you want something brighter, then shine your light on it longer. If you want bright streaks of light, shine the flashlight in the general direction of the camera. Try to not shine right at the camera though… or you’ll end up with some weird twinkle effects – but maybe you’re into that.

Here are a few more photos from my first attempt at light painting…

Link to your best light painting photos in the comments section