Surreal landscapes

The Mission

– Light paint a landscape at night using a torch

Time

– One hour

Skill level

– Advanced

Kit needed

– Tripod
– Remote release
– Powerful torch
– Colour gels
– Head torch

We often think of cameras as tools for recording the world as we see it. But they’re also capable of capturing far more than the eye can perceive. Light painting is a case in point. To the eye, a dark night is just that, but if we stick the camera on a tripod, open the shutter for a couple of minutes and waggle a torch around, then all of a sudden our camera starts to see things differently. To the camera’s sensor, light is accumulative, so when there’s minimal ambient light,