Motorcycle Photography Light Painting Project: 2

Light Painting Project: Triumph Bonneville

Light Painting Project: Part 2 – Triumph Bonneville

The above photograph is the result of having used the ‘Light Painting’ technique to capture this image of a Triumph Bonneville SE. You may have read in the previous post how attempting to capture an image in one 30 second exposure caused the photographs to look drab and underexposed. Whilst I may have been able to tweak things in Photoshop, I’ve decided to show you  those first shots so we can see the difference when multiple exposures are used.

Light Painting involves using a light source [1] to ‘paint’ in sections of the bikes detail using long exposures. These can typically be between 10 to 30 seconds or longer. However the difference in the image on this page compared to those in the previous post is that this wasn’t achieved by one exposure, but rather eight separate exposures where different sections of the bike were illuminated each time.

Once the multiple exposures are imported into Photoshop, it then becomes a matter of layering and blending them to achieve the desired effect.

Whilst the above bike photograph is pleasing, it can also be used as a starting point for something more elaborate, something more artistic.

Step 2: Light Painting Project art work

Step 2: Here we see the project start to develop into something more like a poster.

To carry off this sort of picture art work convincingly, you need to pay attention to things like the colour tone and brightness of the  added art work. For example the lightning has had a slight blue tone added to match the cool feel of the overall photograph.

This second version formed the basis the project and had all the elements in place, but it still wasn’t quite right?

The skull artwork is too prominent in the above photograph and also the lighting on the ‘face’ doesn’t match in with the overall scheme of things.

Step 3: Below is the final finished version with some subtle revisions having been made. The Skull has been resized, repositioned and toned down to make it less prominent. The aspect has also been changed to make it seem as if it is gazing at the bike.

Lastly, but also very importantly; the skull artwork was edited to take into account the lighting effect that was desired. By that I mean that right hand side (as we look at it) has been taken into shadow, which creates the effect that the light source is coming from the lightening. That attention to detail has also been carried out on the hood. Notice how the sides of the hood facing away from the light source are now in shadow.

These very subtle changes convey information that makes the picture more plausible and so have quite an impact on the finished product.

Step 3: Final image with adjustments.

Notes:

[1] The light source can be almost anything, from a strobe flashgun on larger projects to smaller LED pen light torches. It was the latter that I used for this shoot.

 

Triumph Bonneville SE photo shoot

Triumph Bonneville SE photo shoot

Here we have a Triumph Bonneville SE motorcycle 2012 model photographed on location.

This was a four flash gun shoot set up under a railway bridge.

The camera used for this bike photography session was a Nikon D700 teamed with a Nikkor 24 – 70mm f2.8 lens. The lighting was set up using four Nikon SB strobe units, wirelessly controlled with Pocket Wizard’s.

 

Triumph Thunderbird Sport photo shoot

Here is a photograph of a Triumph Thunderbird Sport motorcycle taken in woodland. This bike photography shoot was set up using off camera flash and if you click and zoom in on the photograph you can see how the detail of the bike is picked out.

Triumph Thunderbird Sport woodland photo shoot. BikePix motorcycle photography.

Motorcycle photography is no different than photographing any other subject and the same portrait techniques and principles apply. In this example the strobe flash lighting was positioned to light the bike and enhance the detail, whilst be careful to avoid direct reflections which would create ‘hot spots’ and blown out highlights.

Exposure is controlled by using the camera in Manual mode to select the correct aperture and shutter speed for the ambient lighting conditions.

The picture below shows just how the photo shoot was set up using wireless controlled flash:

Motorcycle Photography: photo shoot set up

 

Triumph Thunderbird Sport woodland photo shoot

Second project: Triumph Bonneville SE

Triumph Bonnieville 2012 SE

Todays project was to photograph this Triumph Bonneville SE on Paignton seafront.

I was lucky in that some canoeists came along at just the right time and with careful composition, I was able to include all three into the background of the photo.

The ambient lighting for the original photograph was a bit drab and I used a single fill flash to pick out some of the bikes detail. The background was slightly underexposed using a faster shutter speed on camera manual setting.

Once the photo was being edited, the colour cast was warmed up by adding a digital daylight filter. Colour contrast was increased and the glinting sun was added using the lens flare filter in Photoshop. Overall brightness was increased and then a graduated filter was added to stop the sky overexposing.

Here is the original photograph before editing, which shows how the early evening light was quite drab and uninteresting due to cloud cover. Also the flash lighting was horrible as it was used on the camera, the worst possible place as that produces ‘flat lighting’.

I was travelling light and had just packed the camera and a single flash gun into the travel bag. So all things considered, it was not a pleasing picture to start out with. There was also some damp marks showing on the floor which were distracting to the eye, but there were cars parked tight either side and so I had limited room to work with. The darker marks on the floor were removed in Photoshop; the sort of post production editing I normally try to avoid as I prefer to ‘get it right’ in camera whenever possible.

On this occasion, it was the editing that saved the day; turning a rather dull photograph into something with ‘visual punch’ and interest.

First project: Triumph Thunderbird Sport night shoot

Triumph Thunderbird Sport at night

Here is the first post detailing a motorcycle photography shoot from concept to photograph.

The idea was to create a slightly surreal picture featuring the Thunderbird Sport apparently photographed at night bathed in moonlight.

Ok, so now to unravel it all and explain how it was done.

This shot was originally taken early afternoon and the scene was backlight by the sunshine. It was this sunlight that was going to give the effect of the bike being lit by the moon.

The equipment used for this shot was:

Camera: Nikon D700

Lens: Nikon 24-70 f2.8

Camera mounted on a Manfotto tripod

Flash: 1 x SB800, 1 x SB900 trigged by Pocket Wizard wireless control.

The SB900 was camera right and fired into a silver brolly reflector as the fill light. The SB800 was left of the camera and fired directly at the bike, the angle being such that the light reflected and picked out some of the details.

Editing:

Once there was a photograph to work with, it was firstly processed in Color Efex Pro 4 using the Midnight filter. The image was then saved as a TIFF and exported into Photoshop where the moon and night sky were added and blended. It was important to cool down the tones from the original shot to give the moonlight effect.