Light painting, but in Harold Ross style.

Lately i have been trying out new techniques to elevate my work and take it to the next level. I come across a chap named Harold Ross and his light painting technique on old vintage bits. I have used the long exposure technique many times in my personal work. Creating awesome light trails of passing traffic. But never to paint the light on to a subject. It creates a painterly type effect with intentional shadows and highlights, something very hard to imitate any other way. Yes, you could spend a bit of time using dodge and burn, or adding your own shadows and highlights in post process. It still doesn’t come close to the using the actual technique.

The plan was to keep the vintage look and use one of my many diecast models tucked away in the shed. I found this old Safeway delivery truck and thought adding the fruit on top would make a good shot. Something a little different, that’s for sure! After taking a few shots at different focal points in pitch black using the small rig pocket light as my light source. I began to light the scene. Exposure set to 4 seconds, f/11 and iso of 100. It was a lot harder than it looks. Trying to light the parts I wanted without creating light trails on the shot was pretty tough. A more beam-type light source would be more suited; it was too broad to capture the details I wanted.

My takeaway from this for next time is to create more of a 3D effect using the highlights and shadows more intentionally. The final image looked a bit too flat for my liking; it lacks the depth of how I imagined the final image to be. I put that down to experience and trial and error. Harold has been doing this for 30 years. You can tell that by his standard of work; it’s amazing. I am going to keep perfecting this technique and try and incorporate this into my workflow somehow. I shoot a lot of cool places that have fantastic interiors and décor. Perfect for this type of shoot.