Lighting Your Foreground Landscape, Method 2

Another popular method of displaying your foreground is to “light paint” it (we looked at this earlier in the Long Exposures chapter, as well). This is easier than it sounds, but it might take you a few tries until you come up with a scene that is lit the way you want it. The basic idea here is to use a small, handheld LED flashlight, and while your shutter is open on your camera that is shooting the stars, you’re going to “paint” with that light over a close rock formation, or foreground area, or tree, etc. You don’t have to paint very long, usually just a few seconds, but enough to light those foreground areas. Again, you’ll have to try it a few times to figure out how many seconds to paint, but it’ll just be a few in most cases. It sounds kinda crazy, but it works like a charm. Now, if you want to light up something big that’s far away (like an arch or a large rock formation, or Mount Rushmore, or an alien spacecraft), my friend and colleague Dave Black (known by many as the father of modern light painting) uses a super-bright handheld rechargeable halogen spotlight that will light paint really big objects up to 900 feet away (it ought to, it’s literally 5-million candlepower!). It’s not cheap either, at $198, but like Dave says, “Go big or go home!” (You can find it at www.larsonelectronics.com.) If you don’t want to spend that much, and you want a smaller light that’s still crazy bright, check out this bad boy: the A15 from CoastPortland.com. It’ll throw its beam up to 429 feet, it’s pen-sized (only 4" long and 5 oz.), and it’s just $65, which is still a lot for a small flashlight, but think of it as your “light painting engine,” and then it doesn’t hurt nearly as much.