My latest assignment for class was "Painting with Light," which means we set out cameras to a long open shutter/exposure and then we run around and illuminate things so that they appear lit in the final picture. And when you do it right, it turns out really well!
For this assignment, we drove north on Rangeline to the 63 Diner, which has been closed for about a year now (but is re-opening soon - if you've never gone, it's a fun experience with good food to boot). The plan was to illuminate parts of the diner for our picture with the ghosts of some former 50's diners hanging around. But when we got there, we discovered that the lights were on. At least some of them. The owner had apparently left on most of the neon signs out front, the clock on the building, and the light in the entranceway. And once we were there, we discovered there are lots of stinky ambient lights (coming from the parking lot lights and the gas station across the street). Those stinky lights yeilded a picture like this:
Pretty much *all* of that is ambient light - except the writing in the windows, the glow on the car, and the atomic eat sign. The colored lines on the chrome are reflected light from the neon signs that were flashing. The big white light by the door on the right is the reflection of the gas station lights. And, of course, you can't even tell that that's a clock above the car.
After trying a bunch of different angles, we had almost given up when we decided to try shooting the picture straight on at the hood of the car. Here's the lay of the land:
And here's our light diagram:
Here's our finished product:
Pretty cool, hunh?
PS - many thanks to Jason for being our human gobo!
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