Jim Baugh Outdoors TV: Shadowpainting Nightscapes

“ S H A D O W P A I N T I N G ”

N i g h t s c a p e s

A technique that is a variant of light painting that I have been developing is something I call “Shadowpainting”. This unique backlighting technique enables the creation of deep contrasting shadows and depth in a scene by utilizing RGB lights, light poles, and a wireless control system where the photographer can preview and instantly control the shutter speed, ISO, and aperture remotely. Shadowpainting also consist of the photographer “Colorscapeing” the Nightscape scene by utilizing a complementing color scheme to the subject being filmed.

Basic equipment: A mobile RGB LED with long light pole, a camera that can be controlled through a smartphone/wifi. Most recent DSLR’s will have wifi as well as a downloadable app that will enable remote control of the camera. One can use wifi or Bluetooth, however you will get better range with wifi and that is what I always use.

The actual equipment I used with these shots is a Cannon 200D/SL2, GVM RGB 7s light, monfrotto tripod and a Samsung 10s smartphone that is used to operate the camera remotly while filming and repositioning the lights.

Step 1 FINDING A SCENE

First locate the scene you want to film. Desirable targets for me usually are historic in nature. It is also good to select a subject that has some object behind and to the side of the selected subject. This could be trees, or just about anything really. It is the objects that surround the foreground subject that you will create most of your deep and best contrasting shadows. An example of a subject that would NOT make for good shadowpainting would be a small barn sitting in the middle of a field with nothing around it. This would make for a nice light painted scene however not so much for shadowpainting.

A good example of Shadowpainting from behind the subject

Important tip: One thing you want to look for in determining a scene is to try and find a subject that you can place your light inside of your subject. For example, a car, a boat, a small abandoned house, etc. Finding a subject like this will allow you to film from the inside shooting your light outside, usually through a doorway or window. This also will let you expand you colorscape because you can choose what color to paint the interior with, here again is where the complementary color match comes into play. What I did was have a color wheel guide on my cell phone and reference it often when deciding the color palate to use.

Subjects like this REALLY come to life when shooting from the interior. These are the type of subjects I look for the most. They are not always possible to find, but worth the search and time to find them.

These are two good examples of painting from the interior shooting out to the exterior bringing life to the scene.

A) Once you have found the scene you want to Shadowpaint, find the best composition and figure the placement of the camera, this is done during the day. It is important to do this step during the day because you need to scout out the area you will be positioning with the RGB light and determining areas that you can backlight the main subject, or subjects in the scene. When you find the locations to film to the side and behind the foreground subject, mark them during the day, just be sure you can remember where they are so at night you can easily find them.

B) The other reason to do this planning during the day is because you will need to determine your color palate or “Colorscape” for which you will paint with. Here you can decide what color you want the main subject to be, then determine complementary colors for the scene. Remember what colors you decide during the day, that takes the guessing out during the night.

IMPORTANT

If not on public property, ALWAYS get permission to film at the location you want to shoot. NEVER take for grantit that it is ok to film, get permission first.

Note: Basically, with proper planning, there is little to no guess work regarding the composition and lighting at night. Once on location, the only real adjustment you may want to make will be minor adjustment with camera placement. Once you are on location and ready to film and everything is set, SUPER lock down the camera on the tripod so it cannot move at all.

Step 2

As soon as it is astronomical twilight or night, turn on the camera and smartphone. Wirelessly connect the two and open the camera app so you can control the camera from the phone. Now set your proper exposure and aperture and iso based on the available natural light in the scene. Once the settings are where you think they should be, fire off several test exposures without any lighting. Check to make sure the tripod/camera is level, examine your test exposures carefully. Once satisfied, now it is time to start Shadowpainting.

Now remember, you already have the colorscape design figured out, so you really can move pretty fast capturing the exposures.

A good example of finding a subject that you can shoot from the interior, creating a lot of life to the scene.

How to Shadowpaint?

Here are some important tips. For one, take your RGB light attached to the light pole and start by filming behind and to the side of the foreground subject. ½ of the exposures should be facing away from the foreground subject. The remaining exposures film to the back side, and side of the foreground subject. Use your smartphone to trigger the camera and view the scene remotely.

If you want a brighter light in certain exposures, simply decrease shutter speed.

Here is a range of shutter speeds I use, and ISO is usually always set to 100. Usually f2.8 Aperture.

4 sec 6 sec 8 sec 10 sec 15 sec 20 sec & 30 sec

(TIP: If you need to start shooting before it is night, but close, you can raise the aperture which will allow you to decrease your shutter speed so you can start light painting. I have had to do this sometimes when I have a time limit of where I have been given permission to film, like parks for example.)

While selecting shots you will want to position the RGB light in different angels, like turning the light pole down so the RGB light is just setting off the ground. This will create fantastic shadows. If there are trees behind the foreground subject, definitely extend the pole and take exposures facing away from (Or behind) the subject. Also take the pole and extend the light into the various tree limbs and take exposures towards the foreground subject, the side, as well as behind. If there are trees and shrubbery behind a subject I am shooting, usually I will take between 8 to 15 exposures just in that area.

Next move to the sides of the foreground subject and light the subject with the selected pre chosen color, take exposures towards the subject as well as away. Keep in mind to vary the height of the light from right on the ground, to as high as the light pole will extend. By extending the light pole to it’s fullest and holding the pole above my head at arms length, I get a reach with the RGB light of over 15 feet. Many times I will take the light and extend it far deep into the trees that are behind the foreground subject. Doing so, will take several exposures while repositioning the light. This creates fantastic deep shadows behind your foreground subject. Think of the light pole as a tool that will enable you to put the light in places that normally would be difficult to do.

NEVER shadowpaint directly head on in front of the camera facing the subject. ALWAYS film from the sides and behind. At most facing the front of the subject, you will want to paint at the quarters on both sides of the subject.

Preview the exposures in the camera but be sure not to move the camera in anyway.

How many exposures to take? That totally depends on the subject and scene. Depending on the size of the subject I will film anywhere from 10 to 120 exposures. Usually the higher number of exposures is due to the size of the scene. The bigger the scene, than usually the more exposures are necessary. On average, I will shoot between 40 to 80 exposures. Creating the shadows takes more exposures because your basically shooting at least two or three addition exposures ( facing away and behind the subject) than one would ordinarily do with standard light painting techniques.

Once you have completed all your main exposures, shoot some safety shots using a flashlight to paint some of the areas that you may fear you have missed. Once in a while, I will use one of the exposures in the final edit. They are good to have.

NOTE: Remember because you are using a RGB light, you can use the colors and positioning to bounce light off the ground or subjects, to help direct the viewers eye of where you want them to focus on. This is a handy thing to remember when composing the shot. In the field I have a few times almost given up on the composition because I just could not frame it the way I wanted, then only to realize I can use lighting to direct the viewers eye in the scene, this has saved me on more than one shoot.

In Post

Once back to post processing, import all images into a script in Photoshop, then highlight all layers, blend in lighten mode. Then go through one layer at a time, adding a layer and adjusting opacity, and any color adjustments. Camera RAW Filer is my go-to. There are plenty of online tutorials on how to stack layers should you not be familiar.

Also as you go through the layers use a layer mask to mask out anything unwanted like the lights themselves. Also be carefull to look at each layer and see if the light is effecting parts of the image that you dont want it to do. If it is, then mask it out.

Once you adjust all the layers in Photoshop, flatten the image. Now you will make final global adjustments like brightness and contrast. Also this is where you can look at the image and if there are some colors you want to pop more, (saturate or de saturate) Use the camera RAW filter and use the color mixer.

At this point, wrapping up, look at the image and see if there is any effects you may want to add such as light rays, fog, lens flair, etc. If you are not familiar on how to do these things, just google online free tutorials using photoshop on youtube.

Shadowpainting is a great tecknique for a lot of subjects and is something I also do on a lot of foregrounds in my Milky Way filming. For filming lanscape Milky Way images (widefield) I use a Ioptron Sky Tracker Polar Aligned, usually with an 11-16mm Tokina Lens wrapped with a lens muff.

All the best, good luck and clear skies.

Godspeed,

Jim Baugh

Jim Baugh Outdoors TV

jbotv@outlook.com

Examples

An example of a Shadowpainted foreground with an astro shot composited. 25 foreground exposures shot at 11mm, 3 background exposures shot at 320mm. Notice the white light coming out of the hatch. An example of extending the light pole to its fullest, inserting the RGB light through the hull of the boat and positioning it inside under the hatch with the light pointing outwards. This was a real shot, the moon did rise right over the wrecked boat, and it was that color. The full moon over Oyster VA/Atlantic Ocean Halloween night 2020

A good example of bouncing a blue light on the ground to direct the viewers focus to the tractor at the top left of the image.

Tangier Island Chesapeake Bay November 2020 Docks and Milky Way, foreground was 35 exposures, Milky Way Single 5 minute exposure tracked.

An example of having to start filming at a higher F stop to reduce light, so the exposure time could be increased. This shot started at around 1-2 second exposure. Then the F stop was decreased and exposure lengthened as the scene became darker. I did this because there were street lights getting ready to turn on that would kill the scene, so had to work fast and cheat the light at the beginning of the shoot. Good thing to know!