BackdoorArts
Senior Member
A couple weeks ago I was introduced to the work of a photographer named Harold Ross and became very intrigued by what I saw, and by his landscapes in particular. In a nutshell, Harold uses external light sources - everything from LED flashlights to larger handheld sources - to paint light that doesn't exist into photographs in a way that looks very natural, and yet also rather mysterious. Here's an example...
He has some semi-instructional videos on his website and in watching them I was able to suss out the heart of what I believe his technique is, which is essentially using multiple long exposures lit from "inside" that are then merged into a single composite in Photoshop, allowing the utilization of the lit areas from the individual photos while masking the evidence of the person doing the lighting.
Like all processes, it's easier said than done, but I've made it my goal to give this style a serious effort and to see if I can come up with something of my own in doing it rather than simply try to mimic Harold's landscape work (he is far more recognized for light sculpting in the studio, which relies on the same basic methodology but in a more controlled environment).
One of the photos that intrigued me was a lit snow-scape, and with the snow we received last weekend (coupled with an utter lack of green for the next 3-4 months) I decided to give it a shot. I'd tried in years past to capture the effect of the snow sitting on top of the bushes lit with Christmas lights that we have out front. The results have always been OK, but nothing special. What I decided to do was take a 10x6 LED matrix light that I have and use it to add light to the inside of the bush to give it a greater glow effect.
I shot 3 separate 30 second exposures. My first failure was that in using my D600 I had brought out my IR remote instead of the RF model, and the IR would not trigger while I was in position to light the scene, so 5-6 seconds of each exposure involved me running from nearby the camera to the position I wanted to light from, turn the light on and light the area. Had I used my RF remote I could have been in position and had more time to light. Here are the 3 images I took. These have been lens profile and aspect corrected in Lightroom, all shot with my 16-35mm.
Image 1 - apply light from deep underneath the bushes
Image 2 - apply light to the back anf far right of the bushes
Image 3 - apply light to the back left and across parts of the top of the snow
From here I simply opened the 3 images as separate layers in Photoshop. Image 1 served as the background since it had very little stray light that needed to be masked out. Image 2 shows that I have a lot to learn about blocking the light itself, but it did have the impact I desired in the lower right portion, so I simply applied a layer mask, blocked everything out and then painted back what I wanted. I then repeated that with Image 3.
Here's the result. Nothing earth shattering, but I'm happy that I had something shareable from my first attempt. After merging the 3 I flattened and did some global adjustments, choosing to do it post-merge rather than risking matching images that were adjusted individually beforehand.
Next time I'll be better organized and plan things out a little better rather than just going off the cuff.
He has some semi-instructional videos on his website and in watching them I was able to suss out the heart of what I believe his technique is, which is essentially using multiple long exposures lit from "inside" that are then merged into a single composite in Photoshop, allowing the utilization of the lit areas from the individual photos while masking the evidence of the person doing the lighting.
Like all processes, it's easier said than done, but I've made it my goal to give this style a serious effort and to see if I can come up with something of my own in doing it rather than simply try to mimic Harold's landscape work (he is far more recognized for light sculpting in the studio, which relies on the same basic methodology but in a more controlled environment).
One of the photos that intrigued me was a lit snow-scape, and with the snow we received last weekend (coupled with an utter lack of green for the next 3-4 months) I decided to give it a shot. I'd tried in years past to capture the effect of the snow sitting on top of the bushes lit with Christmas lights that we have out front. The results have always been OK, but nothing special. What I decided to do was take a 10x6 LED matrix light that I have and use it to add light to the inside of the bush to give it a greater glow effect.
I shot 3 separate 30 second exposures. My first failure was that in using my D600 I had brought out my IR remote instead of the RF model, and the IR would not trigger while I was in position to light the scene, so 5-6 seconds of each exposure involved me running from nearby the camera to the position I wanted to light from, turn the light on and light the area. Had I used my RF remote I could have been in position and had more time to light. Here are the 3 images I took. These have been lens profile and aspect corrected in Lightroom, all shot with my 16-35mm.
Image 1 - apply light from deep underneath the bushes
Image 2 - apply light to the back anf far right of the bushes
Image 3 - apply light to the back left and across parts of the top of the snow
From here I simply opened the 3 images as separate layers in Photoshop. Image 1 served as the background since it had very little stray light that needed to be masked out. Image 2 shows that I have a lot to learn about blocking the light itself, but it did have the impact I desired in the lower right portion, so I simply applied a layer mask, blocked everything out and then painted back what I wanted. I then repeated that with Image 3.
Here's the result. Nothing earth shattering, but I'm happy that I had something shareable from my first attempt. After merging the 3 I flattened and did some global adjustments, choosing to do it post-merge rather than risking matching images that were adjusted individually beforehand.
Next time I'll be better organized and plan things out a little better rather than just going off the cuff.
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