100 Stunning Demonstrations of Light Painting

Oct. 7, 2010  |  Compilation  |  28 comments

Light painting is the process of using long camera exposures to create stunning lighting effects.

By having a camera’s shutter open for extended periods of time, often well over a minute, trails of light can be drawn with LEDs, flashlights, or even sparklers.

Light painting, also known as light drawing or light graffiti, can produce some truly stunning results but don’t be fooled, it isn’t as simple as just waving a little light in front of a lens. This is a very hard technique to master.

In this massive compilation, you can find 100 amazing demonstrations of light painting. If you know of any other great examples, please share them with us in the comments below…

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/9918311@N02/4268587808/
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This post was authored exclusively for WDD by John O’Nolan, a seasoned web designer, writer and entrepreneur based in Surrey in the United Kingdom. John loves to talk to people, so why not @JohnONolan on twitter too?

Have you ever tried light painting? Or have you seen any really good examples of it? Let us know in the comments section below!

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COMMENTS
  • http://www.nicolebauer.com Nicole Bauer

    A few weeks ago I saw a report on TV on how these photos are created. Very impressive! And great collection!

    • http://www.thestickyicky.com Abs

      Care to share where you saw that?

  • http://yukirock.org.ru yukirock

    amazing…
    i love #55 very much…how did they make it…

  • http://art-a-designer.ru Art-Designer

    play of light – very cool! Great work

  • http://www.ayomedia.co.uk Ayo

    these are amazing – thank you for sharing!

  • Thiago I.R

    Great stuff! Goku is always very cool. =)
    But the “rain of light” deserves an award. Really.

  • http://www.realerhq.com Jonathan (RealerHQ)

    There’s a lot to take in there. I’m not a photographer so I’m curious just how long some of those exposures would have to be.

  • http://www.birnamdesigns.com David W.

    #20, the light inside the brandy snifter, isn’t light painting. I believe it’s EL wire (http://is.gd/fPBnb for google images of el wire). It’s still a neat shot, especially with the internal reflections, but it doesn’t belong in the set.

  • http://www.creativeindividual.co.uk Laura

    Stunning

  • sally howden

    reminds me of Spirograph :)

  • http://alldesignandprint.co.uk Simon Hall

    very nice. Like the talktalk adverts.

  • http://twoseventydesign.com twoseventy

    If anyone is willing to post a tutorial on how to do this, I will instantly love you forever.

  • http://www.childmonster.com/ Childmonster

    Very nice lighting :D

  • Martin B.

    @David W. Nr. 20 is actuallay one of my photos. You are correct that the light inside the glass is El Wire. Had it been a photo of only the glass with el wire in it, it wouldn’t have been lightpainting. However, as you can see there are lights behind the glass too, which is the lightpainting I added to this photo. So even though the main focus of the picture isn’t lightpainting, lightpainting have been used in the making of this photo.

    For all you that want to see more lightpainting I would suggest checking out this group on flickr called “Llight Junkies” which has many, many photos with light painting and some really nice toturials if anyone one of you would like to give it a try yourself. I must warn you though, it’s addicting ;)

  • rainbowape

    Some of these are amazing and really impressed me. I loved the ones with the “rain” light. Would love to know how this was achieved and give it a go..

    I tried some light art a few times, one of the most successful was this one. http://minify.me/?8qpgvf I have done others with flaming poi before but these used the light from my mp3 player as the glostick i originally tried didnt have enough light.

  • http://www.vivoocreative.co.uk Luke

    Beautiful! Love number 55 :)

  • http://artworkrebel.co.uk artwork_rebel

    Thank you for featuring a few of my photographs. My Goku picture seems to be the most popular one I’ve done! I’m hoping to get a lot more light graffiti/painting photos done very soon! I hope I make it on future lists with my new work!

    Thank you again!

  • http://www.melyien.com Melyien

    impressive collections!

  • Jon Ivee Hernandez

    Nice execution of photos

  • http://gr8pixel.com Shantha

    check out these light writings..
    http://www.behance.net/gallery/Light-Writing/325502

  • http://www.colddesign.com Giacomo Colddesign

    Great collection, thanks!

  • http://www.benstokesmarketing.co.uk Web design Shrewsbury

    Nice . . . very swish demonstrations of light painting :)

  • http://manishahujas.blogspot.com/ Manish Ahuja

    A great collection of imaginative, innovative, colorful ideas captured at the right moment.

    Thanks for sharing.

    Manish :)

  • http://nostalgia-krissy.blogspot.com/ krissy

    <3 Love it!
    It inspires me…

  • http://www.ghemotoace.blogspot.com Sergiu Lazin

    Hello,

    If you will follow this link

    http://www.visualart.ro/challenge/castigatori

    And go to place 70. at an entry called “Drawing at the speed of light” you will see our proposal of light painting for an art contest with the subject “Speed”

    any thoughts ?

  • http://www.ghemotoace.blogspot.com Sergiu Lazin
  • peter folk

    you forget two great german artist

    http://www.lapp-pro.de