Pete Barnes - Wakefield Wedding Photographer » art

Abstract Photographic Art: Parabolas

Pete Barnes — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:45:39 +0000

ISO200, 16mm, f/2.8, 48 seconds

Hey folks, saw this abstract art technique recently and thought I’d put it out there if you didn’t know about it. Light trails can make some great images, all you need is a tripod and a small light (and a camera, obviously). It relies on opening the shutter for several seconds and drawing something with a little pen light. This technique is pretty similar. You need to be in a really dark room and have a shutter release cable attached as some exposures can run into minutes.

ISO100, 16mm, f/11 172 Seconds

All you do is hang a small pen light from the ceiling, I just used a bit of duck tape to hold the string and torch up. Lie the camera flat on the floor directly below the light and try and get the focus locked on to the light and then set it to manual focus. Set the camera to Bulb mode (B) or manual (M, manual mode will only allow 30 seconds maximum so if you have a cable release, use bulb), ISO at 100 and aperture may vary depending on the brightness of the torch. In the photos here I used f/2.8 as the first torch was very dim then when I swapped torches I had to use f/11, if you do a few test shots first you’ll get an idea of the aperture needed. Once everything is set to go, turn off the lights and set the light swinging, open the shutter for say 1-2 minutes and see what you get. I used a wide angle here so I could use a long piece of string but it depends on what you have available.

ISO100, 16mm, f/11 159 Seconds

The result is and abstract parabolic swirl. You can use lightroom to adjust any colours either with white balance or split toning and maybe increase the blacks to make sure no light has spilled onto any surrounding furniture. Good luck if you try it folks, varying the starting direction will massively alter the end result.

More War

Pete Barnes — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:53:00 +0000

Another one from my forthcoming war collection which I’m tinkering with as releasing as limited ed prints (bit pretentious I know). I’m going to do a total of 25 images with a run of 25 on each image. I’ve brought in a few props, in this one we can see the famous Sherman tank bearing down on the Germans. Anyway the partially complete gallery of these shots can be seen here. Take a look if you have a spare few minutes.

Marco Soldier Art

Pete Barnes — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 18:29:00 +0000

I’m doing a small collection of images using old toy soldiers and this was one from the first batch. Pretty simple set up, one light coming from the left and a small amount reflected off a white board on the right, quite a dramatic result.
I used a 50mm macro lense and set the camera to full manual and dialed in ISO200 f/16 1/100sec. I was also using a new border style today, more to try and define it as art rather than Haribo toy product shots!

Un Disastro de Electricidad

Pete Barnes — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:54:00 +0000

This is a photograph of one of those plasma lamps that, without being overly technical, use electricity. If interested you can learn all about them here. They make great photographic subjects and can edited to produce very abstract results. They are fairly easy to photograph however you do have to be on full manual and in a dark room. Shutter speeds can run to many seconds but this gives a very different result to the one seen here. This image was exposed for 0.6 sec at f/8.0 at ISO400. The shutter was about as slow as I could go to keep the beams defined. You can get a wide range of results, just keep reviewing them after changing any settings.

Smoke

Pete Barnes — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 15:40:00 +0000

I was just clearing my lightroom database and I came across this one so I posted it, I haven’t done one of these for a while, it’s a really easy technique, I shot this at f11, 1/250 iso 200. I used an off camera flash to light it from the side. This is shot on a black background, just a piece of card should do it then all you need to do is invert the colours when you process it, ie black becomes white etc. Colour can be added as an overlay or by playing with your white balance settings and the hue/saturation layers. I also have a rainbow tinted smoke trail on my site from the same shoot as this.