Here is a sampling of some of the dance and sports photos I’ve taken over my years as a community reporter. I apologize for the quality of some, as they are images of clippings from newspapers I’ve worked at.
Of course this technique isn’t just for musicians and music. It can also be for dancers. Again, I was my own model, which makes things a little more complicated. but here, I’ve attached the lights to my ankles, and bounced my flash to light up a larger area (after cleaning up my room a bit!).
You see, while the lights and their colours certainly add something purely artistic to the photos, they actually illustrate what the person was doing over several seconds. While the light streaks don’t make the person’s movements obvious exactly, the more you consider them, the more you can deduce from them. In this photo, Derek made two leaping kicks, which you can see as the large, purple loops.
The same premise can be applied to different types of dance, like waving which is done mostly with the arms. So this time we put lights on his hands. Also, to add to the idea that Chris is the one who caused the lights to move in the way they did, I aimed a light on him to freeze his face in its previous position. The Ghostbusters shirt turned out to be a good choice.
Take this shot for example. You see the line of lights that go around the back of the shot? We found that that particular design happens when you have someone moonwalk for you. You can actually see Chris’ shoe move up and down. That, in fact, is what he was doing.
As you may have read in my previous post, this idea is all about showing movement. With these photos, Patrick and I are accomplishing that with some led’s strips placed on his shoes.
Here, we have Derek doing his signature move, while I write ZPlitz over his head, and then light up his body a bit. This is more or less standard light painting.
