A few months ago, thanks to the National Geographic Photo of the Day RSS feed, my mind was opened up to a whole new realm of photography: Light Painting. Sure, I was always well aware of the concept—nightime city shots with streaked headlights or the incredible all-night exposure of the starry sky, but I had never realized just how much could be accomplished. I have been determined ever since to try some of my own.
This past Saturday, while Tara was studying, I dug out my long neglected nerdery, that is, prized electrical components that I’ve pillaged throughout the years, and mimicking a project from Make Magazine, I built a couple light orbs. The first one is a bunch of red LED’s soldered together and a few pennies and a dead AA battery for weight powered by a 9V battery cased in an Altoids box. The second is a strip of tiny neon lights that I procured years ago from a dangerous corner of the web for electronics nerds: The Electronic Goldmine.
My 2 Light Painting tools: the Orb, and the Lightsaber
Once the nerdery was complete, I shut myself in the darkened bathroom to try them out. The results were interesting…
Attempt 1 with the orb. The exposure was a bit long. Also, I did not expect that I would be that visible.
Freaky…
Attempt 1 with the Lightsaber.
I then tried a few abstract self portraits…
And now for something completely different…
This one I took after a hike. It was a 15 second exposure, timed such that a car would be headed down the road (the red). However, a cop pulled up in the final seconds and stopped to yell at some kids to put out their fire (the bright white). Thus, the end result looks like a friggin’ laser!
Absolutely Andrew 
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