Unnatural selection - lightpainting silhouettes on Hive

My lightpainting comrade with a flashlight, Hive account@gunnarheilmann, recently wrote a post about silhouettes in lightpainting which gave me the idea to write this post. You can find his feed here: http://peakd.com/@gunnarheilmann/

I must admit to being a bit obsessed with shooting lightpainting silhouettes myself. I think this might have something to do with having no wish to appear in the images myself, maybe it's because I'm shy! :-) But in trying to avoid appearing in the images, we end up making silhouettes in to something like an art form.

Unnatural Selection

I've shot many silhouettes before and it would have been quite easy just to shoot Hive account@neilru75 here with one or two colours mixed with each other and Neil being silhouetted as usual. But for this shot I placed a piece of black electrical tape over the lens and fired the red gelled flashguns located at the rear of the frame. Without ending the exposure, and in complete darkness, I removed the tape and fired blue gelled flashlight behind Neil. I'm not sure it was wise to place a sticky, tacky piece of tape on to an expensive lens!

Socially Isolated Selfie

Another reason I don't generally appear in my own lightpainting images is that I'm quite a large chap! It's rather like Shrek taking up lightpainting! This is me in an abandoned railway tunnel in rural Lincolnshire right after a lockdown here in the UK:

Selfie in a railway cutting

Earlier this year the sky was clear and I was itching to get out and test my new lens, a Tamron 17-28mm f2.8 for Sony FE. Bag packed, belly full and off in the car 10 miles from home. Alight from car in eager anticipation of shooting star trails and bugger, the clouds have turned up. There's nothing like a cloud to ruin your evening...

Anyways, I changed course and knocked together this selfie shot in an abandoned railway cutting: First impressions of this lens were good; it's sharp!

Selfie under the stars

This is another one of me with my big coat on! This shot also cost me another Godox AD200 strobe after I dropped it from a short height. Luckily, I've worked out where to get these expensive things repaired!

Selfie in the rain

It's not often that you will find my image on the internet but the backlit rain for this test shot looked great.

Circle of OCD

No article about silhouettes would be complete without mention of the world's most silhouetted subject, Hive account@fadetoblack ! We've been out in the dark so many times over the years and we're convinced that Tim must be the most silhouetted person in the world!!

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.

Social Media
https://www.facebook.com/fastchrisuk
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fastchris/

If you want to see more examples of lightpainting, feel free to check out these guys: Hive account@fadetoblack, Hive account@stepko, Hive account@mafufuma, Hive account@yo-hoho, Hive account@oddballgraphics, Hive account@martbarras & Hive account@rod.evans.visual

Follow the Hive Community Lightpainters United to be introduced into the world of light painting.