Lonely Playground

[Manta]

Another shot from my nocturnal wanderings last night. Kit lens, 30sec exposure @f3.8, ISO 500. No flash used - I held my torch behind the camera and used it to paint light over the areas I wanted to see. There was some ambient light coming from a street light to the left and this washed things out a bit but, as this was my first real experience with light painting, I was reasonably happy with it.

Please feel free to pick it to pieces so I know what to work on next time.

[Geoff]

Simon! Wow mate. I like this image. Did u shoot it in raw? If so the only thing I would contemplate is cooling it down a bit with the temperature. It provokes a very eery feeling and you've titled it well. Goon on ya mate!

[BBJ]

Simon this looks really scary,LOL but hey its a great shot, different and good. Shows lots of colour as well, and framed sets it all off nicely.

[marcotrov]

Unusual approach and well worth the effort byt he looks of the results simon. Gee! the only worry would be getting mugged while you were photographing.
cheers
marco

[owen]

Hey Simon. Nice shot. The only thing I would suggest next time you try it is to lower the ISO and perhaps up the aperture to increase sharpness. You will need to compensate by painting each area for a fair bit longer, but the result will be an image with lower noise - not that this looks noisy in the smaller version but I imagine the larger version would be based on my experience with 30 second exposures.

Cheers,
Owen.

[Potatis]

You've done a great job with this, Simon! This kind of photography with the torch is (still) on my photography "to do" list. It looks like great creative fun.

[Manta]

Thank you all for the great response.

Geoff: Yes it was shot in RAW and I played around with the white balance for ages but just couldn't get a good compromise. I ended up keeping the "As Shot" setting because other things I tried caused some really weird colour casts in various areas. I know it looks off but this is pretty close to what it loked like at the time. The slide is actually yellow, the spiral climbing apparatus beside it is actually white and the glowing night sky is reflecting the orange street lighting from the housing estate behind. On top of that, I think the torch I was using had a slightly orange colour to it as well so there was all kinds of evil afoot as far as colouring was concerned!

BBJ: Thanks John - pleased you like it. It was certainly a bit spooky down there..

Marco: I had made sure I parked my car under a light and was keeping a very keen eye (and ear) out the whole time! It's amazing how you hear every tiny little sound when you're alone in the dark with a lot of expensive camera gear. Never saw another living soul, though there may have been some unliving ones around...

Owen: Thanks for the advice - I'll certainly take note. The full sized version is, as you expected, quite noisy. I was pretty well guessing the settings on this one, thinking that a nice wide aperture would give me the best result given the cheap little torch I had. Looking at it now though, I needn't have been so cautious. I'l probably try using the in-camera Noise Reduction next time too. It's worked well for me in the past with some 30 minute star trail exposures.

Doug: Grab your camera, tripod and torch and just get out there and do it! I love this style of shot and want to do a lot more of it too. Good luck.

[Oneputt]

Simon I really like this, it has an unreal element about it. Might have to try that technique myself.

[PiroStitch]

Manta, a great idea and well captured. I wouldn't be too worried about getting mugged...I'd be more worried about nosy owls calling the cops on you for suspicious activity

If you wanted to make it even spookier, bribe a kid to go along and get them to play on the equipment (ie. slide down the slide) during the long exposure...now THAT's spooky

[blacknstormy]

Simon - brilliant idea - and way too addictive I'm thinking..... I love this shot. It is sureal and spooky, and I can't believe the neighbours in the area didn't call the cops about the 'shifty' looking character hanging around the playground !!! LOL

Congrats on a unique image, and one that will get quite a few of us out in the night with a torch and a tripod

[Manta]

Thanks John, Piro and Narelle.

I've now seen this on someone else's monitor and couldn't believe how red-looking it was. I seriously have to ditch my old CRT and get a nice new flatscreen...

[Slider]

Nice one Simon. I sometime use a similar technique for macros with my LED torch.

[kinetic]

I love this shot Manta. There's something sort of counterintuitive about a playground being so creepy. The rust/reddish stains on the slippery slide almost make it look as if a murder has been committed there.
..........and now I'm going to lock my back door!!!!

[Manta]

Thanks Slider - I must admit I think I must have missed those or not recognised the technique at the time.

Thanks Kinetic - you are a sick puppy! (But I like it )
Must keep my eye out for a clown so I can really play with some spooky images....

[mudder]

Really spooky... Wonder how that'd look in B&W with some gentle vignetting (sp?) around the highlighted slide...

[Antsl]

Hi Simon,

If you want some serious advice here ... next time you have a go at this idea, keep yourself and the torch moving about the subject. You can see in this image two telltale signs of a single light source ... one being the shadows running from the fixed points on the ground and the other being the spectral highlights on the bars to the left of the image.

The next time you go out ... move away from the camera as you are painting with light and keep the torch moving up and down over the objects. Dont forget the inverse square law either ... that states that as you double the distance from the light to the subject you will need to increase the time the light is on that area for by a factor of four to compensate. One useful trick is to keep a black card of even a black cap with you and this way you can actually walk into the scene as you are painting with light ... so long as you keep the black cap between the torch and the camera you will not know where the light has come from .... this is useful for adding light to the ground behind the subject, therefore revealing more of the shape of the subject.

Enjoy working this technique. A fellow photographer in NZ used his car lights to similar effect a few years ago for an image of a church that was published in one of his books. He asked me how it was lit and I went through all the options however none of them included car lights because the angle of the light seemed to be from on high. Turned out the car was parked on a nearby hill!

[Manta]

Thanks Antsl - I really appreciate the time you've taken to comment. I had a couple of attempts where I was quite close to the structure but I couldn't effectively block the torch and it popped up occasionally in the final shots. I really want to explore some other avenues in this area so I'll have look for some worthwhile subjects with nearby hills!

[mudder]

One subject I've always wanted to try this with, is an old dead gnarled tree with nothing else around, reckon that'd look really spooky.

[Manta]

I actually did this with a pretty normal looking gum tree the same night as the playground, Andrew, but it was only 'cos it was there. I've got an absolutely magnificent old tree nearby that I will have a crack at some time.

[Dougie]

That is indeed a spooky image, love the colour

[Manta]

Thx Dougie.