Are you Colour Blind and how Good are you at Determining Colour?

A shorter post this week (which I’m sure you’re relieved to hear) but today I wanted to briefly look at the subjectivity of colour. This is a colossal subject, but I wanted to share some of my thoughts on how colour is perceived by each of us and is it really that important?

Colour IS Subjective.

First off, colour is subjective.

I don’t care what else you believe in, but that is an indisputable fact. You perceive the red of an apple differently to me and we will never know by how much, ever.

More importantly though, neither of us are right or wrong as there is no way on knowing the actual exact colour of that apple.

Colour only has any relevance when we try and describe it to somebody else and the accuracy of that information is rarely crucial. When I ask you for a red apple and not a green one, you aren’t going to ask exactly how red I want my apple to be.

Of course there are situations where colour is life threateningly crucial. Pilots, coastguards, electricians, bomb disposal experts and many other careers need to know the subtle variances of colour, but ultimately most of us needn’t worry too much about what colours we’re actually seeing.

But What if You’re Colourblind?

The reason I’m prefacing this article with the subjectivity of colour is because I hear photographers being concerned that they can’t accurately determine colour casts correctly and that they may be colourblind. Let me be clear, there is a vast difference between being colour blind and not being able to determine subtle variances in colour where photography is concerned.

First off, colour blindness is genetic (hereditary) and as such you were born with it. You can’t catch it, nor can you ‘fix’ it. Chances are though, even if you are colour blind, you’re managing just fine. I am also almost entirely sure that when you did discover you were colour blind, that it was somebody else who ‘told’ you that you were. Up until that point you were likely, and rightly unaware of it. Remember, colour is subjective and I will only know what one colour looks like to me and you will only know what one colour looks like to you. It’s nearly always somebody else telling you that you’re seeing colours ‘wrong’.

Note: If you’d like to check if you’re colourblind, I have included a list below of useful online visual tools to determine your abilities to spot variances in colour.

Colourblind or not, how does it affect us as creatives?

So now that we’ve determined that it really doesn’t matter if you’re colour blind or not, let’s look at how our ability to read colours affects us as photographers. Like I said, if you’re colourblind it’s not the end of the world for artists, in fact it’s often quite the opposite.

Look at the work of famous directors like Christopher Nolan and Nicolas Winding Refn. They are both colourblind movie directors working at the top of their game with little to no negative implications of their colourblindness.

Drive, a movie directed by Nicolas Winding Refn is one of the most visually powerful films in recent history. Nicolas Winding Refn use outstanding colour palettes to tell his story.

Neon Demon, another film by Nicolas Winding Refn and arguably a movie that uses extremes of colour to set mood and imply intrigue.

The Dark Knight directed by Christopher Nolan is one of the biggest films ever made. That success is in part due to the incredible cinematic use of colour within the darkness of this movie predominantly set in the dead of night.

So whether you’re colourblind or not, don’t let it hold you back but more importantly don’t let anybody else tell you it’s a hinderance or that you cant be a good photographer or any other artist for that matter.

What if you’re not colourblind but you still find it hard to determine variances in colour

Okay so this is really where a lot of us sit. We’re not colour blind, but we struggle with spotting subtle differences in colour. These colour differences I’m referring to are specifically related to photography and they crop up when we’re trying to correct white balance issues or trying to colour grade a shot.

Photo of LPL C770 Colour Head Enlarger from Jon Cramp who is selling it here

Here’s the good/bad news; colour acuity is a skill. It can be learnt, but it will take time.

This skill is like any other and 20 years ago, I was terrible at it and now I am a lot better at it. Back then, before digital, we would have to colour print using negative enlargers and chemicals. We would have to dial in our colour corrections by hand via the magenta, yellow and cyan dials on our enlargers. We would have to also know that we can create any colour correction via these three dials because by removing magenta we get green, by removing yellow we get blue and by removing cyan we get red.

This was hard.

I was not great at it and that’s because it takes time to develop the eye skill to determine colour casts present in your shot. Anybody can colour print correctly if they know what colours to try and balance, the skill isn’t in operating the machine but in knowing what needs to be adjusted.

Let’s take a look at a couple of examples below to try and see what I mean.

The above image may look okay to some of you and in all honestly, this would have looked perfect to me too 20 years ago.

But experience tells me that there are a few concerning colour factors present in this shot. The shadows are looking a little sickly with a slight cyan/green tinge and the highlights are a little yellow. Let’s dial in some corrections and see if we can get closer to something the looks more desirable.

JakeHicksPhotography (2 of 3) no col cast.jpg

With the colour adjustments made, I’m feeling a lot happier about the overall shot and the skin tones now visually look more appealing. Some of you may actually prefer the previous version, and that’s totally fine too. More importantly though, at no point did I say I was trying to make this look accurate or perfect. I personally believe that’s a fool errand, as making it look perfectly accurate is technically impossible.

Remember I said at the start that we all see colour differently and that colour is subjective? Well, how on earth are we supposed to accurately colour correct something if we all see something slightly different?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying colour correction isn’t important but I am saying that you need to develop a personal eye and taste for it and that will only develop over time. Look at the colours in your images from years ago, are they perfect? Chances are that you’d colour them differently now.

Spotting variance in colour is a skill like any other. I get asked by my wife all the time to taste-test dinner whilst it’s bubbling on the stove. I taste the food and to me it either tastes good, or it doesn't . I have absolutely no clue what to add if it doens’t taste good though, but some of you will likely think I’m mad. Surely you know if it needs more salt, wine, sugar etc?! To you that may be obvious and to me, colouring is the same, it’s obvious but only because I have a lot of experience with it and I’ve trained my eyes to spot very minor differences in colour.

Closing Comments

So with all this in mind, let’s try to drop the word ‘correction’ from ‘colour correction’. There is no ‘correct’ colour so stop worrying your monitor has shifted a degree one way or another, instead start paying attention to colour with your own eyes rather than relying on what a machine tells you is right and wrong.

Of course colourblindness is a real thing and it’s very important to a lot of us. Chances are though, if you’re smart enough to be reading this post then you likely already know if you’re colourblind or not.

But if you’d like to double check, here’s a few links to put your eyeballs through their paces.

Ishihara colour blindness test

The Ishihara colour blindness test is the most famous and it’s the one with the all the coloured dots and numbers. There are plenty online and most are fairly simple for a wide range of colour variances in eyes. The link I’m providing here though takes you to a fairly complex version that has a lot more nuance in colour. You’ll get a score at the end too.

Remember though, colour blindness is far more common than you think. 1 in 255 women and 1 in 12 men have some form of color vision deficiency so don’t be alarmed if you don’t get a perfect score.

Enchroma Colour Blindness Test

Farnsworth-Munsell hue test

So now that you’ve taken the Ishihara colour blindness test and you’re confident you know your colours, here’s the far harder Farnsworth-Munsell hue test. This test actually gets you to rearrange hues on a chart from one colour to another. This is an excellent tool for us photographers because it forces us to spot very minor and subtle changes in colour hues.

The X-Rite Color Challenge and Hue Test

Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test

It’s now finally time to leave the kiddie slopes and test both your patience and your eyeballs on this last hue test. This time we’ll be rearranging nearly 100 hues across four colour strips. Once you’re done, hit the ‘score test’ button to see your results.

Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test

Like I said before, colour is subjective and even if you are colour bind, don’t let that stop you from being a phenomenal artist or photographer. And if you’re not colour blind but still struggle with spotting variances in colours, don’t worry, it will get easier with time and experience. For example I passed all of those three tests with a perfect score, but I guarantee you I woudln’t have even come close to that 20 years ago.

Feel free to fire off your scores below though…if you dare ;)

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If you liked this article and would be interested in more posts like this in the future, please feel free to sign up to my monthly newsletter. I publish one of these articles every week and each month I collect them all up and send them directly to your inbox just in case you missed one. Signing up now also get's you my free 10 page pdf on Studio Lighting Tips and Techniques. Jake Hicks Photography - Newsletter

If you're interested in any of my work and would like to know more about how I created some of my shots then why not check out my workshops. Here you can find out everything there is to know about Gelled Lighting, Long Exposure Flash Photography and my entire Post-Pro Workflow. Jake Hicks Photography - Workshops

I've also just released a brand new 22 hour complete Gelled Lighting Tutorial video. I go over everything from studio lighting setups with gels to being on location with gels plus I also go through my complete retouching and post pro workflow. For more details and complete breakdown of everything that's include check out my Coloured Gel Portraits Tutorial

I also offer comprehensive coloured gel packs. These collections of gels are what I use day to day to create some of the most highly saturated colours around. If you're looking at getting into gelled lighting or need to get stronger and richer colours in your coloured gel work why not check out my Jake Hicks Photography Gel Packs

Do I need to be Calibrating my Lenses and How do I do it? PLUS: How to use Nikon's Hidden Auto Fine-Tune

Technique Tuesday Facebook Thumbnail lens cal copy small.jpg

When we finally pluck up the courage to purchase an expensive lens, we expect them to be perfect right? Unfortunately, no matter how good the lens is, there are always going to be minor differences when we attach it to our specific camera. Often our camera bodies are made at a completely different time and usually in a completely different factory, so when we finally bring the two together there are often minor adjustments that we the user have to make to ensure we're getting the best Image possible from that specific lens.

So regardless of whether our lens is new or old, or if our camera body is new or old, many will say fine tuning your lens to your camera body is crucial.

How to Calibrate your Lens

Thankfully calibrating your lens isn't difficult and if you're going to do all of your lenses at the same time, it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to do them all. It's worth pointing out now that this process is really to calibrate the autofocus on your camera to the desired lens and will not fix ‘soft’ focus lenses in any way. If your lens is soft when you manual focus with it, this process will not improve it.

What you will need:

Sturdy Tripod
Focus chart or ruler
Software to review results
Patience of a saint

Set your tripod and camera up at the same height as your chart or ruler and make sure the camera is level. Use a spirit level (usually on most tripods) if necessary.

Setting up your chart

Next you’ll need to set up your focus chart. Although there are plenty of places online where you can download and print out focus charts, I personally don’t feel it’s all that necessary. I used a metal ruler that I had in the drawer and that seemed to work for me. In fact you could just as easily use some packaging that has a lot of text on it. The real trick here is to mount the focus chart/ruler at an angle so you can see the focus drop off. You just need to have a specific point to focus on and then other areas of detail around it to see where the actual focus is falling. Like I said, I used a metal ruler as I could focus on a specific measurement number and then check what was in or out of focus around it.

I mounted mine on a stand at a downward angle and focused my camera halfway along the ruler.

Click to enlarge. I mounted my ruler at a downward angel and focused half way along the centre. — *Click to enlarge.* I mounted my ruler at a downward angel and focused half way along the centre.

Setting up your Camera & Tripod

Next up we’ll need to make a few adjustments on our camera setup and settings.

First you’ll need to place your camera and selected lens at the appropriate distance from the ruler. This distance is dependent on the focal length of the lens you’re calibrating and the easiest thing to do, is check the details on this super handy chart from LensAlign. Their Distance Tool allows you to input your camera sensor size, your focal length and minimum aperture and it’ll give you the optimum distance you’ll need to do the test. Input your numbers and then set up your camera at the appropriate distance as recommends by the site.

Camera Settings

You’ll want to set your aperture to the widest your lens will allow. For example in this instance I was calibrating my 50mm f1.4 lens so I set my cameras aperture to f1.4. Make sure you have adequate ambient lighting and that you’re shooting at a fast shutter speed to capture a very crisp image to avoid minor movement throwing off the focus adjustments. I had my ISO at 1600 as the noise wasn’t a concern because I wasn’t interested in printing these out.

Next you’ll want to switch to live-view to enable you to zoom in and really nail the focus. It’s my recommendation that you should select the centre focus point as well as choose the smallest focal point possible.

Once all that is done, it’s time to zoom in and focus on the centre of the ruler and take a shot. Again, my advice would be to take at least three shots here so that you can get a broader look at the auto focus. Each time de-focus the image and then refocus again to test the auto focus properly.

Importing and Checking your Images

All that’s left to do now is import your photos into editing software like Lightroom or Capture One. Importing your photos into an image capture software enables us to zoom in a lot further than on the back of camera. Remember that the image on the back of your camera is a JPEG so zooming in a long way can make the image appear fuzzy, whereas importing them into software like Lightroom allows us to check the focus point accurately. Once you have imported your photos, zoom into the image so that the focus point is filling the frame. Now we can assess whether there is any fine tuning to be made with our autofocus.

Click to enlarge. Import your files and then zoom in so that the focus area is filling the frame. Now we can check to see how accurate our auto focus is behaving. — *Click to enlarge*. Import your files and then zoom in so that the focus area is filling the frame. Now we can check to see how accurate our auto focus is behaving.

Pro Tip:

Sometimes it can be hard to distinguish what is in focus and what isn't, so a good trick can be to use the colour picker and see what colours appear in the focal range. For example most lenses will have aberrations and those aberrations are consistent in a digital file. Areas that are out of focus behind the focal point tend to have a green hue to them, and areas that are out of focus in front the focal point tend to have a magenta hue to them.

Click to enlarge. If you’re photographing something neutral in tone then you can use aberrations in colour to determine where the focus point is. — *Click to enlarge.* If you’re photographing something neutral in tone then you can use aberrations in colour to determine where the focus point is.

Making the Corrections

First off we’ll need to bring up our AF-Fine tune to turn it on and make the adjustments. This is the Nikon menus but the other cameras use a very similar name and process. For Nikon go to the menu with spanner icon and in there at the bottom you have the Af Fine-Tune Menu. Go in there and then turn on the AF-Fine-Tune.

I had a quick look for the Canon version and you can see how to access it here Canon AF Fine tune

This is where the Nikons AF Fine Tune menu is located but other camera manufacturers have a very similar name for it too and should be easy to find.

So now that we have our AF Fine-Tune enabled, we can begin to make some adjustments. If we look back at our imported images and review them to see what can be improved.

If you feel that the cameras autofocus is missing the mark consistently, then you'll need to make some adjustments in the fine tune menu of your camera. So for example if your autofocus is consistently focusing behind the intended focal point, you'll need to adjust the autofocus fine tune with minus numbers to bring it back to where it needs to be. Conversely, if the autofocus is consistently focusing just in front of the intended focal point (closer to the camera), you'll need to increase the autofocus fine tune with positive numbers.

For example in the image above you can see my 28 to 105 mm Lens was consistently back focusing, which meant that the fine tuning adjustments ended up being -13 in the fine tuning menu. This process can take several attempts to get it perfect so you may want to make large changes to begin with to start seeing the effect. Make the fine tune adjustment, take some more shots, review the images in Lightroom and make any necessary adjustments again. Repeat the process until you're happy.

Closing Comments

It’s highly likely that you’ve read the procedure of how to calibrate your lenses before you’ve actually gone ahead and implemented the process for yourself. So before you dive in and start this admittedly mind-numbingly boring process, let me just warn you that this is not the holy grail of razor sharp images but merely a single step in achieving them. It’s also worth mentioning that this process only helps to get sharper auto-focus shots, it does not make the lens itself any sharper. If you wanted to test this further to see just how sharp your lens is then I recommend you use live-view, zoom in to max and take some manual focus shots just to see how sharp your lens actually is a reference point for the auto-focus tests.

Do I really need to calibrate the fine-tune of my auto focus?

My basic answer is no, I personally don’t feel this is necessary for most portrait shooters, or street shooters or in fact most shooters that are not using a tripod most of the time. I think if you’re a landscape, wildlife or still-life shooter then this is probably worth your time to do as critical focus is often crucial for what you do, but more importantly, achievable.

For those of us shooting portraits or fashion or just people in general, I don’t think you’d notice the adjustments being made here. These are micro adjustments remember, and hard to spot consistently even to the trained eye. Plus the adjustments are barely noticeable in a very controlled situation with the one specific goal is to spot these variances. There is very little chance that whilst we’re handholding a camera and taking a picture of another moving subject with focus and recompose variations that you’d notice these fine-tune adjustments.

Should you calibrate your auto-focus on all of your lenses the next time you have a spare afternoon?

Sure, it can only help.

Should you go out of your way to make calibrating your lenses a priority before you take another photo?

No I don’t think so.

BONUS TIP FOR NIKON SHOOTERS

Did you guys know that us Nikon shooters have a shortcut through this whole lens auto-focus calibration process, that allows the camera to read an image and make micro adjustments automatically?

Well rejoice because most modern Nikon camera now have this rather hidden feature and here’s how you activate it.

I honestly have not looked to see if this is possible with other brands like Canon and Sony so if you know it can be done with those brands, please let me know in the comments.

Step one

Setup up your shot like we mentioned before. In fact it can be any object that is fixed in front of your tripod. Activate live view, zoom in all the way, use single shot auto focus and select the smallest focal point you have.

Step Two

You don’t actually have to take a shot as the camera will do that for you in the next step. What you need to do next to hold the auto-focus selection button (often located on the auto and manual focus switch) and the video record button for about 3 seconds.

Step Three

If done correctly a window will appear asking if you’re sure. Make sure you’re firmly planted with a tripod as it suggests and hit ‘Yes’. I actually recommend very lightly touching the screen (if you have a touch screen Nikon) to confirm this as any camera movement during the process will not allow you to proceed.

Step Four

If everything was done correctly, your camera will then show you another screen a couple of seconds later to say “The new value has been added to the ‘AF fine-tune’ ‘Saved value’ list.

You can now go to the fine menu and see what value has been assigned to you lens to correct it.

Strong Recommendation

Although this is an automated process, I strongly recommend you run this process several times as each time you will like get a different value assigned to the lens. Remember this is far from an exact process so this was to be expected. The best solution I found was to simply take an average of several readings. So for example I ran the same process 5 times on my lens and here’s readings I got: -16, -15, -19, -13, -14. I just added them all up and divided it by 5 to get the average and then input that number as the best value.

Auto AF fine-tune failed.

You will likely get the auto AF failed window a few times and here’s a couple of things I did to fix the issue.

Make sure there’s enough ambient light. If not, don’t be afraid to boost the ISO.

Shutter speed to low. - I was originally shooting at a 60th but it needed a faster shutter of 125th to work in my tests.

The camera moved. - Like I mentioned before, when the screen pops up asking if you’d like to proceed, be as gentle as possible to avoid any subsequent camera shake.

Improper source image - The image filing the focal point needs to have sufficient detail for the camera to look at. Mine had strong lines but text on a non-shiny surface would work well too.

Thanks for Reading

Well there you have it guys, I hope this was useful and at the very least it’s given you some knowledge about the process.

If you liked this article and would want to be shown more posts like this in the future, please feel free to sign up to my monthly newsletter. I publish one of these articles every week and every month I collect them all up and send them directly to your inbox in case you've missed one. Signing up now also get's you a free 10 page pdf of studio lighting tips and techniques. Jake Hicks Photography - Newsletter

:WARNING: I can’t believe this article was free when the deals below are so amazing!

Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 002

"Stay Inspired" is a weekly post on my Facebook Page where I share the work of an inspirational photographer or artist every Thursday. I've been doing this every week since 2013, so there is now a vast number of outstanding creatives from all genres and disciplines that we've looked at over the years. In fact I’ve been doing it so long now that even I’ve forgotten some of these great artists so why not try and collate them all into one place for not only myself but for you as well.

This is the second compilation, so if you missed the first one and are interested in an inspiration overload, here’s the link to the previous one Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 001

These new posts will look at a collection of 10 artists each and they should prove to be an excellent resource for not only inspiration but motivation as well. With each artist shared, I will include a short overview of their work including things to consider and look at whilst on their portfolio.

Please bear in mind that these opinions are mine and as such, very subjective. I could just share a link but I believe a more personal point of view of another artists work may be of more value to you over simply stating their name and age for example. But this does mean you may not always agree with me and I would encourage that. Art is subjective and like music, the best art does not appeal to everybody.

Inspirational Work from 10 Photographers and Artists 002

Stay Inspired Facebook Thumbnail Temp copy.jpg

If we were playing 'Photographer Top Trumps' and I had the Elizaveta Porodina card, you would loose!

Prepare to be demoralised and inspired by this outstanding fashion photographer from Russia.

Porodina is seemingly obsessed with reflections and colour harmonies and can think of no other who displays them better. Although beauty is throughout her portfolio, an ability to see in a variety of different ways is real skill in and of itself. So what with the stunning contrast and colours throughout this portfolio and an ability to see images that others don’t, you have a style that is both perfectly executed as well as seemingly raw and spontaneous. This is why Porodina’s work is one of my all times favourites to this day and certainly deserved of your time and attention without hesitation.

Elizaveta Porodina

I love this guys style as it’s pretty eclectic, just the way I like it! Aaron Feaver is like any self respecting fashion photographer who likes flare in their shots he's based in L.A. and like Aaron's style, his port is a jumble of campaigns, looks and eras and it’s actually quite refreshing to see somebodies work laid out like this. There’s no stories, no campaigns, no real discernible order, just great image after great image which is actually pretty engaging to look through. Head on over to his site and check it out for yourselves.

Aaron Feaver

Stay Inspired Facebook Thumbnail Georgi Andinov.jpg

Bulgarian born Georgi Andinov fashion photography shows a stunning mastery of technical lighting, and for somebody who says they've only been shooting since 2011 his work is outstanding. This link takes you to his Instagram as his site is no longer available. His Instagram shows a huge range of work but scroll back a little way and you’ll see some his earlier fashion work and if you like that, I strongly urge you to simply Google image search his work to as some of it most certainly worth your time.

Georgi Andinov - Instagram

Portuguese Fashion Photographer Frederico Martins' work is phenomenal. Period. He's currently working out of London UK and is regularly featured in every big name glossy you can name. Flawless attention to detail with lighting as well as impeccable post production (granted not all of this is done by him these days) means that every shoot he does is very bold and very clean. Go check him out

Frederico Martins

For our inspiration this week we head to the far east for some super clean fashion and editorial work from Shanghai based Stockton Johnson. For the curious among you its worth finding and trawling through his blog to check out some of the more glamourous behind the scenes shots.

Stockton Johnson

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London based Jenny Brough has some outstanding fashion and beauty shots over on her port. She has a super crisp style but isn’t afraid to make things a little interesting with her use of old films and lenses, especially with her Polaroid work.

Head on over and don't forget to check her Facebook page which has some more recent conceptual work.

Jenny Brough

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Swedish born Camilla Akrans has a phenomenal body of work spanning many different photographic styles. Here she is showcased by one of Sweden's foremost agencies, LundLund. We are very privileged to have access to such a huge amount of her work here and Ive linked directly to the editorial section where most of it can be found. Take the time to spend the time as I assure you it’ll be time well spent.

Camilla Akrans

Chuan do and Frey are a rare duo of outstanding fashion photographers. They are currently based in Asia and their clients span Louis Vuitton, Harpers, Levi's and many charities such as Action for Aids and Breast Cancer. Check out their work and see the eclectic and inspirational nature of working with another so closely for so many years.

Chuan do and Frey

Stay Inspired Facebook Thumbnail An Le.jpg

An Le is a Vietnamese born US based photographer who has a huge amount of content on his site http://www.anlestudio.com His style although editorial in presentation is firmly based in the conceptual realm and in an Interview with MODA mag last year,( http://www.modamagsg.com/?p=161) the 23 year old describes the influences that have shaped his work (that’s right, I said 23 year old!) :O

http://www.anlestudio.com/

Stay Inspired Facebook Thumbnail VictorDemarchelier.jpg

Here I wanted to showcase somebody who personifies what it means to be a great editorial photographer. New York born Victor Demarchelier has been shooting for the big name glossies for…. well, ever and his photography is as refined as comes. If you look through his work you will notice that his lighting is impeccable, granted he's not breaking the mould artistically but this refinement in lighting is often lost on newer photographers as they dive into the sea of fancy lighting modifiers, adding blues to the shadows in post and finishing up with some artificial grain. There's nothing wrong with this but I think it’s also worth taking the time to study others like Victor and see what they define as important in an image.

Look at the nose shadows, crisp catch-lights in the eyes and most importantly lighting the clothes perfectly in the process. Those photographers seeking agency representation will have to master and showcase this mastery of light long before they take interest in a portfolio of blurry bums solely shot at f1.8. I hope you enjoy his work.

Victor Demarchelier

Closing Comments

As with all of my posts, I welcome your comments and thoughts on the artists I've shared here. Although all of the photographers and creatives I've mentioned above come from my own personal tastes and appreciations, I still feel they are all incredibly varied, which ultimately means there will be at least one persons work here that you'll love.

Granted we've really only looked at 'people' photographers here including, portraits, fashion and editorial shooters with none of the other photographic genres being covered, but it's still incredible to me as to how varied this single discipline can be.

I think one of the core things I want you to take away from this series is how another person interprets their subject into a photograph. Sure you can simply reverse engineer the lighting or copy a pose of an image but I hope you take away a lot more than simply the mechanics of a photograph.

Look at their style and see how that is impacting their work for the better. Look for similarities in pose, expression, subject, lighting, theme and colour. All of these things play a role in any image and by appreciating that in others work we can be better equipped to express it into our own images.

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5 Professional and DIY Light Painting Tools For You to Try

My new Long Exposure Portraits tutorial shows how to use a lot of light painting tools and long exposure techniques in conjunction with your studio flash portraits. Click on the image above to find out more. — My new Long Exposure Portraits tutorial shows how to use a lot of light painting tools and long exposure techniques in conjunction with your studio flash portraits. *Click on the image above to find out more.*

Since the recent release of my new Long Exposure Portraits tutorial from RGG EDU, I've been inundated with messages and questions relating to the light painting section.

Questions like:

'What's the best light paining tool to use?

'Where can I get them?'

'Which ones did you use in your video?

With this in mind, I sought to put together this guide to answer all of these questions and more. I'll not only be explaining the ones I personally used in the video and where to get them, but I'll also show you other light painting tools that are fun to try and that you likely already own.

DIY Light Painting Tools

One of the best things about long exposure photography for me, is the ability to turn seemingly uninteresting objects and locations into exciting and visually engaging imagery. I'll be showing you some examples of simple household objects you can use to get awesome shots and I think this perfectly illustrates how practically anything that emits light, can create interesting long exposure effects.

Torches/Flashlights

First up we'll look at a tool you all should have somewhere at home and that's a torch (flashlight). In the example images below I'm actually using Maglite torches. Maglite's have a fairly unique ability in that their tops can be removed to expose the bulb and you can do this when they are turned on. This means we can have a very small, but bright bulb isolated in the shots to create light trails incredibly easily. All you have to do is turn them on, remove the top, and then move them around whilst the shutter is open and you're done.

More details on the smaller handheld Maglite’s can be found here

Maglite’s were very popular before LED's came along, but if you still have some in a drawer somewhere then they create great long exposure results very easily.

The light trails produced by simple torches/flashlights are very easy to produce. Here I'm simply holding two torches together to get this dual streak effect.

LED Work-Light

Next up we have the LED flashlight alternative in the form of this handheld work-light. These particular lights generally have a long line of LED's attached to a handle and this is perfect for waving around during the long exposure time period without fear of getting your own hand in the shot.

For my one, I simply added a diffusion gel to eliminate the harsh individual LED bulbs and then I also cut a series of gels to wrap around it too. I not only cut individual colours from old gel sheets but I also cut several smaller, different coloured gels and taped them together to get multi coloured streaks in the final images you see below. These gels were then held in place with an elastic band to avoid them slipping or falling off.

These lights are pretty easy to find online by searching 'handheld LED work light'. Here's an example of one on Amazon to get you started. LED Work Light Handheld Flashlight LED

Click to enlarge. In the above shot (top left) you can see my original LED handheld lamp. It has a single sheet of diffusion gel wrapped around it to soften the individual bright bulbs. Next to that (top right) I have a single pink gel attached to i… — *Click to enlarge*. In the above shot (top left) you can see my original LED handheld lamp. It has a single sheet of diffusion gel wrapped around it to soften the individual bright bulbs. Next to that (top right) I have a single pink gel attached to it as well. Lastly I cut up some old gels into strips and then taped them together with black tape before attaching the whole thing to the lamp (bottom right).

In the top left we have the result of just the white light. In the top right we have a single coloured gel attached, and in the bottom two shots we have the different coloured gel strips attached instead.

Click to enlarge. In these portraits we can see the simple LED work-lights creating some very cool effects when they have different coloured gel strips attached to them. — *Click to enlarge.* In these portraits we can see the simple LED work-lights creating some very cool effects when they have different coloured gel strips attached to them.

Smart Phone

Here's one that you'll almost certainly already have; a smart phone. These are actually excellent light painting tools for a number of reasons; firstly, you can put any colour you want on your screen, even graduated colours. Another bonus to using them is that you can adjust the brightness of the screens, and some go very bright indeed which is perfect for combining them with flash and other brighter light sources. Lastly the other benefit of using your phone is the clean colour it produces. Sometimes when mixing flash and ambient lights you get odd mismatching colours, the phone screen is a very consistent colour that is very similar to that of flash.

Normally I'd provide a link here, but I think it's highly unlikely that you need my help to find a smart phone.

Smart phones make great light painting tools because they are bright, can display any colour or gradient you like and they produce a colour that is very similar to flash.

In the above shots we have light trails produced by my smart phone. On the left I have a single pure pink colour being displayed on my screen and in the other two images I have a gradient of colour being displayed. With the ability to display any co… — In the above shots we have light trails produced by my smart phone. On the left I have a single pure pink colour being displayed on my screen and in the other two images I have a gradient of colour being displayed. With the ability to display any colour or image on a hand held screen the possibilities for long exposure light trails with your phone are practically limitless.

Fairy Lights

As with so many of the other DIY long exposure tools, the options are huge when it comes to this next one. Fairy lights are perfect as they are very small and very bright points of light which is ideal for what we need them for. There is nothing stopping you from using the regular plug-in fairly lights but the cable can get a little cumbersome when you're trying to produce shapes and swirls during a long exposure. My advice would be to pick up a couple of LED fairy light strings that are powered by batteries. That way you can put the battery in your pocket and move around with the lights far more freely.

Again just searching LED fairy lights will bring up a variety of choices to use but here's one to get you started Battery Operated Fairy Lights

These tiny little LED fairy lights are very cheap and also incredibly easy to use.

Due to the nature of the tiny bulbs, LED fairy lights produce very strong and clean results that are easy to use and control.

Professional Light Painting Tools

Light Painting Brushes

So as well as having fun with a variety of light painting tools that you can find at home, I wanted to share the tools I actually used in my tutorial and where to get them for yourself. Of course there is nothing wrong with playing around with any light source to create the light trails, but these purpose built tools really are excellent and in my opinion really do elevate the look and feel of the long exposure effect to another level.

The tools I used were from a company called Light Painting Brushes and if you head over to their site, you'll quickly see that they have an absolute ton of clever tools to get your long exposure imagination going. But although there are so many viable options to play with, I personally decided to work with their Plexiglas brushes. These come in a variety of shapes but the ones I fell in love with were the Plexiglas Diamond and the Plexiglas Rectangle as the results they produced in conjunction with my flash photography were outstanding.

How do they work?

Thankfully these couldn't be simpler to use, all you need is the Plexiglas brush, their connector and a torch/flashlight. You connect the brush to the connector and then you insert the torch into that and you're done.

The Plexiglas brushes couldn't be simpler to use. Attach the connector to the brush and then insert the flashlight and you're done.

One recommendation I will make here is to use a powerful flashlight and ideally it needs to be an LED flashlight. The reason for this is due to the nature in which this product works. For example the Plexiglas appears to light up but in fact the torch is only catching light off the edges of the Plexiglas so a lot of the power is seemingly lost. Also, having an LED torch means that the colour produced with it will be very similar to the colour produced by your flashes making combining the two light sources in a single shot much simpler.

Click to enlarge. In the images above you can see how incredibly clean and crisp the Plexiglas brushes look with a variety of movements during the long exposure. — *Click to enlarge.* In the images above you can see how incredibly clean and crisp the Plexiglas brushes look with a variety of movements during the long exposure.

Of course don't stop your creativity there as we can very easily add and change the colour of these beautiful ribbons of light by simply applying coloured gels to them.

Below are just some of the shots I captured with the coloured gels and I say 'some' because I took so many images whilst I was testing these out. The process of trial and error and then reviewing these stunning results immediately, is actually very addictive. As you begin to shoot you very quickly learn what works and what doesn't. Experimenting with moving it slower, faster, big movements, small movements... the list goes on but it never ceased to amaze me just how different every single frame was.

Click to enlarge: Above we can see some stunning examples of the Plexiglas brushes being used in conjunction with coloured gels. These are all single shots, there’s no layering of frames here and the hi-res versions of these genuinely feel like art … — *Click to enlarge:* Above we can see some stunning examples of the Plexiglas brushes being used in conjunction with coloured gels. These are all single shots, there’s no layering of frames here and the hi-res versions of these genuinely feel like art in their own right due to how crisp and clean the coloured light ribbons are.

But why stop there?

With those incredibly clean and crisp coloured ribbons of light, it only seemed sensible to add them to my coloured gel portraits with flash as well.

All of the images below are captured within a single frame and they all use the Light Painting Brush’s Plexiglas tools in them to create the effects.

Click to enlarge. All three of the images above are each captured in a single frame and use both flash and the Light Painting Brush’s Plexiglas tools. — *Click to enlarge.* All three of the images above are each captured in a single frame and use both flash and the Light Painting Brush’s Plexiglas tools.

Closing Comments

Like I mentioned at the start, almost anything that emits a constant light source can be used to create light trails within a long exposure shot. I've shared 5 products that I recommend playing with, 4 of which you most likely own already. Plus the beauty of the DIY versions I've mentioned is that you can start to play around with the technique immediately, then if you decide you really enjoy the looks you're producing, upgrade to the Light Painting Brushes to get those more refined and polished looks.

Lastly, if you would like to know more about how I created some of these Long Exposure Portraits, please feel free to check out my 6+ hour video tutorial. This step-by-step tutorial not only explains the light painting techniques shown here, but many other long exposure fashion and portrait lighting setups as well as how to incorporate long exposure into your location shots. For more details of what's included please follow the link Jake Hicks Photography - Long Exposure Portraits

Lastly, I also have a Long Exposure and Light Painting workshop on September 22nd in London. Join us as we use these Plexiglas Light Painting Brushes in shots of our beautiful model for the day. For more details follow the link Long Exposure & Light Painting Workshop

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TWiP Talks: Creative Lighting and Coloured Gels with Jake Hicks

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had the pleasure of speaking to the prince of podcasting Frederick Van Johnson over at TWiP (This Week in Photo). Frederick has been releasing photo related podcasts once a week since podcasting began and I think he's on episode 550+ or something insane like that!

In this interview we discuss the importance of an audience. Is it more important for you as a photographer for your images to have a little impact on a lot of people, or for your work to have a lot of impact on a few?

We also talk about the value of social media in the current photo world as well as go through some of my personal ideas and beliefs on what makes a successful photographer today.
We also look at the importance of gear and understanding light plus a whether you're actually a photographer or an artist.

It's also available as an audio only podcast on iTunes and Spotify etc. All those links can be found underneath the video on this TWiP page.

*I apologise in advance for the drop in quality for this as Skype craps out half way through for some reason :(