Give indoor light painting a try!
There are many ways to enhance your indoor setup with the use of light painting. Just bring a flashlight, tripod and camera into a dark room and let your creativity soar.
Farmhouse Morning
For this first setup, I really wanted to show off the farmhouse vibe of an early morning sunrise. With the light forming a triangle between the subject and camera, it created some beautiful mood lighting. Since the milk and eff are the main focus of this piece, it got a little bit of top lighting to bring out the highlights.
In post production, I cloned out some light trails that the camera picked up and did some dodging and burning to enhance the photo even more.
American Truck
I wanted this second setup to show the light trail in the background of the photo. I wanted it to look as if the car was in motion and leaving trails behind it. With a dim light and a diffuser, a soft light was shining on the front of the car with a quick spotlight on the baseball. This one took a few tries since the baseball is so much brighter and shinier than the rest of the photo.
In post production, I darkened the background to remove the texture of the black cloth. I felt it looked more dramatic with the pitch black background.
Pop!
In this setup, I placed different colored soda bottles on top of a piece of frosted plexiglass with an LED light underneath. By spraying the bottles with water, it created the illusion that they were chilled glasses. With another light used as a side lighting, the caps were able to be illuminated like the rest of the bottle.
In post production, I used content-aware to crop out of the photo since it was too tight. This created a larger black background.
Under the Sea
In this setup, we placed seashells on a burlap cloth with kinetic sand scattered throughout. As we used a blue and red light from either side of the setup, it created a purple light mixture. To create the illusion of water reflections, we shined a light through some iridescent plastic wrapping paper.
In post production, I altered the hues and saturation of colors.
Overall, this was a huge learning experience that helped me to become familiar with my camera settings in the dark and understand the importance of lighting.
