For some years, I've been addicted to camera rotation photography. This is a sub genre of lightpainting photography where the camera is rotated on it's lens axis which results in some rather mind bending results often difficult to comprehend. I've taken a break recently from camera rotation photography and thought it was about time I gave it another go!
The basic principle is to shoot in the dark and control the amount of light that hits the sensor by rotating the camera. This is done by shooting lit objects surrounded by dark areas which means that you shoot elements of an image without exposing other parts of the frame leaving those spaces within which to add light to.
Let me explain. After you shoot an element in the frame, it's necessary to replace the lens cap to prevent any more light reaching the sensor than you need. This is sometimes known as the "lens cap trick" often used by lightpainters.
There is no limit to how many angles of rotation but with this kind of photography sometimes less is more. Shooting an object with 18 x angles of rotations, ie; 20 degrees over 360 would leave an image which would look way too busy. Most of the work I've seen start from two all the way to twelve rotations and how complex the image looks depends on the subject.
Rotating Chayla
This is an eight way rotation where the model starts to look fussy and complicated. To combat this I used a lower power strobe for seven of the eight rotations making Chayla's face more defined on the right:
For this image, Chayla was isolated against a dark background and looked fairly small in the frame on each firing of the strobe. The unexposed spaces become gradually filled with each firing of the strobe. It helps very much to think in advance with this stuff and know where light is going to be in your frame.
The Home Made Camera Rotation Tool
This is the home made version of my camera rotation tool.
This rotation tool was one of the first prototypes my brother and I made where the curve attempted to counter balance the weight of the camera as it rotated. We initially found that longer, heavier lenses created a kind of cantilever and we dropped a few tripods with expensive cameras along the way!
This was something of a "Heath Robinson" affair. The winding of the rotations was accommodated by means of a wiper motor from a Vauxhall Corsa Mk 2. This particular wiper motor seemed to work well. So for a while about 5 years ago, we were buying all the Mk2 Corsa wiper motors we could lay our hands on!
One of the things we had a Eureka! moment was how to measure the angle at which the camera is rotated. We tried various things including a marked scale and a home made protractor. None of these methods worked particularly well until we had a Eureka! moment and used a camera phone! It turns out that Apple and Android phones both have built in angle guages so we attached the phone to the top of the camera and we were then able to be very precise!
We've modifed the design of the camera rotation tool a little since then but I'll leave this here to show it as an example of how a rotation tool works.
More Examples:
Sheffield City Centre rotated Four Ways
This would be an ordinary looking city centre scene with a posh coffee shop in the dark. When rotated four ways it takes on a whole different level of sci-fi. I've always imagined this like something out of Bladerunner.
Rotating a Lightpainter Three Ways
Using the phone to measure the 120 degree angles, this is a three way rotation with laser beams everywhere!
The Four Lightpainters of the Apocalypse!
I'm not that keen on four way rotations at 90 degrees increments so here I've rotated the camera to 45 degrees to start off with and then every 90 degrees from there.
Rotating in a city
In order to avoid exposing parts of the image sensor more than is required, it's best if you only expose for the subject and decrease the aperture of the lens to a smaller f stop. It's always important to remember to replace the lens cap between each rotation before moving to the next angle! This was shot in a bright city environment and I used a small aperture and exposed only for the lit fountain here:
Panning and Rotating
This is a four way rotation but the central figure was shot first, then the camera panned to the left before a four way rotation was attempted.
Freehand Rotation on the Kelpies
I quite like to rotate freehand rather than with a wiper motor gear. This is a freehand rotation of a public sculpture lit up in the dark. It's actually a pair of horses heads, each 18mtrs high with colour changing lights hidden inside. You have to be quick rotating the camera with these things since they change colour all too quickly!
Too many rotations?
This is an example of probably too many rotations. This image was shot in Leeds' Royal Armouries Museum with it's unique tower at one end full of swords.
Less is more
This is the same subject in Leeds except rotated only four ways. I moved the focal point a little but I think the result is much better:
Spinning Acrylic
One of the great things about this technique is that you can pretty much rotate anything in the dark. These are pieces of folded fluoresent acrylic rotated:
Rotating Other Artist's Work....
During a trip down to Canary Wharf in London, I rotated this public art piece as I was bound to do! I don't think the artist who created it was quite expecting this!
It's rainging bokeh
One of the great things about camera rotation is that it opens up a whole new field of creativity in lightpainting. This is a simple two way rotation overlooking Sheffield's city skyline except for the second part I defocussed the lens to create this effect of raining bokeh:
If you find these images inspiring you can find more about camera rotation photography on 
https://www.jasondpage.com/light-painting-images/camera-painting/
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.
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