At a photoshoot this week I was asked to do light painting photo portraits. Light painting photography is simple: A long exposure for creating trails of light around the sitter, coupled with a burst of flash to hold a frozen image of the sitter themselves. The last time I photographed this family we did this and they were so impressed, Mum asked for it again. With a set of battery powered, multi-coloured fairy lights to trail around the kids, we produced a ‘cone’ of light trails encircling the children. The results can be mixed as any additional light makes ghostly smears of the sitter’s features on the final photograph; especially with exposure times of several seconds. This set turned out well though and were good enough for including in the album I produced for clients.

This photographic portrait session, for a group of eight children, included some lovely dynamic images of the kids jumping and hair-swishing for the camera, plus a set of lovely natural photographs that I know will appeal to the parents of these 8 and 9 year olds. We finished with the light painting images as requested and then Mum said she would like to do one too. Ever one to oblige, we set one up for her, with Dad then doing the honours to swing the lights, suspended on a ‘selfie’ stick. (they’re so adaptable!) Here’s what we got: