I had never tried some of these long exposure techniques…
Long Exposure can be difficult to figure out at first, but it is so much fun. I took all three of these photos on an excursion I did a few weeks ago. There are many more photos from the excursion to come, but for now, here are just a few.
For the above picture I used a bicycle tire with some lights rigged on it (I call this a half orb) to sketch in the air behind Kayla. It was dark in the barn where we took this picture so I used a longer exposure and moved the half orb up and down while walking behind Kayla. I originally wanted her to be a silhouette, but when I bumped up the exposure in post, I loved the effect. There was some ambient light coming from behind me that lit up the barn and gave off some purple light. I also brought up the highlights so that it would be easier to see the half orb effect.
You may not believe it, but this picture was taken using a long exposure. Using a long exposure when taking picture of people can be hard. If they move too much, they will be blurry (as you saw in the picture of Kayla, although in that picture I was originally looking for a different effect). Their head is especially difficult to keep still. To combat this I used a speed light and flashed it once or twice on her face. I could then light pain the rest of her body without worrying as much about her movement. I got up really close to her with the light so that the light and shadows would be easier to see. This picture looked pretty amazing from the get go, so in post, I just boosted the clarity and saturation a bit.
For this shot I used a flashlight to light paint the foreground as well as the trees. There was also a flashlight that had been dropped in the water previously which improved the shot even more by showing the color of the water. I used a 30 second exposure for this shot so that I would be able to light paint and also see the stars.
As far as editing is concerned I began in Lightroom and brought up the shadow and fixed the colors. I then brought the photo into Photoshop and used a variety of adjustments to get the color to where I wanted it. I did also add some contrast using a black and white filter.
Long exposure is your friend! Don’t be afraid. Practice makes perfect, so give it a try!
If you are wanting to learn more about long exposure, check out this article by DigitalRev explaining “How to Set Up Your Camera For Long Exposure Photography.” You can also check out “Ultimate Guide to Long Expoure Photography” by Christian Hoiberg