Ball of light REVISITED!

you might recall my entry from last week "ball of light"

click here to read

well, given that the weather wasn't cooperating (as after few attempts it started raining), I decided to organize another session...

as I was (as usual) researching on the web, I came across with a similar technique "the dome of light"... still related to painting with light YET, instead of swinging around the cable, you need to secure it to a stick/pole and you can use it to pivot it from a fixed point (which will be the "core" of the dome.

what do you know? I accidentally picked a very peculiar date and time: Full Moon for May, 2011: May 17, 11:09...

location this time was a Buddhist temple nearby Nang Thong beach (coming back to the crime scene!)
anyway, easier to show than to describe it... here's the result of my first attempt

01_painting_with_light_dome_of_light

shutter speed at 87" f stop at 9 - (time: 11:02pm)

Surely you can notice (as I did right away) that despite having a well defined dome edge, some meridians are quite wiggly... so I decided to use this kind of imperfection with a "smokey/swirly" filling effect:

02_painting_with_light_dome_of_light

shutter at 84" f stop at 9 - (time: 11:09pm, blue filter added in post editing), cool but a bit messy dome...

as I've said, weather was slightly better but the mosquitos were hungry! Staying still trying to draw the dome was a challenge with those buggers swarming around me...
change of strategy: back to the ball of light which will keep me moving, swinging the light will prevent mosquito to get closer and I might get neater light shapes.

03_painting_with_light_ball_of_light

shutter speed at 71" f stop at 7.1 (taken at 11:26pm) - pretty cool uh? full moon with the cloudy hazy sky gave the huge flare effect

the ball of light is (personally) much more rewarding! change of composition, change location of the ball and this is what I came up with:

04_painting_with_light_ball_of_light

shutter speed at 84" f stop at 7.1 - full moon super flare!

last change of composition: ball of light by the shrine opposite the temple:

05_painting_with_light_ball_of_light

shutter speed at 66" f stop at 6.3 - time 11:37pm...

my "light tool" started failing for the excessive spinning and the light was coming on and off at each swing... that was the signal that for that night I was done!

I will improve and modify my tool for future "painting with light" projects, for SURE!!!

Until then... take care and keep exploring the endless possibility of photography!