Light Painting in Portraiture... (A Test Shot For A Job I Didn't Get)

A few weeks ago I put in a bid for a project and didn't get the job... I did however think the test shots I took for them looked really cool so keep on scrolling if you want to see how created the lighting setup.

This is a simple two light setup (3 if you the actual product being photographed which was the LED bracelet). I had one speedlight placed camera right with with a MagMod grid attachment and another speedlight with a blue gel attachment placed over the subjects right shoulder to create a little bit of rim light and also a nice contrast between the red LED light on the actual bracelet itself.  

In oder to get the full effect of the light painting and not worry about any light bleeding into the frame I blacked out all of my windows and shot in a completely dark room on manual focus.  The flash from the strobes froze the subject in place and the long exposure allowed me move my arm around and paint in the rest of the frame with the light from the bracelet.  It took me a few tries to get the light streaks how I wanted them but all in all this was a very quick and easy setup with what I thought was a really cool end result.  The client however had a different opinion but I'm not going to let that get me down!

I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial and if you want to see more be sure to subscribe and also follow us on Instagram @ReadylightMedia and "like" us on Facebook!

Until next time,

Jeff C.