As an experiment with my roommate, Julie Kooser, a Photojournalism Major, we decided to experiment with the science behind photography by photographing light. This is also known as “Light Writing”.
We created the following images with an LED Flashlight. The pink light was create by placing a photo filter over the LED Flashlight.
Below is a photo slideshow of our creations. Read on to learn how science affects this type of photography.
The Science Behind the Photos:
Light is essential to developing the ambiance of a photograph. It can make a photo soft and natural, or harsh and edgy.
For the above photos, it all depends on the ISO, Aperture, Shutter Speed and their timings with each other.
A few definitions before the explanation:
ISO- This refers to how sensitive the film is to light and depends on the type of film in your camera.
Aperture- This refers to how wide the lens is as the image is taken. The wider the Aperture, the more light gets exposed on the image. Wider Apertures have lower numbers, i.e. f/2 or f/4.
Shutter Speed- This refers to how long the camera lens is exposed to the image. For most photos, its usually very short, only a few seconds, but for light writing it needs to open for a significantly longer amount of time.
How it works:
Light writing works because you are burning light into the film. By this, I mean the wide aperture and long shutter speed allow for someone to move light continuously like writing with a pencil.
As the light source is moved and because the aperture is open for a long time and is very wide, the light is burned into the film as one continuous line of light, as opposed to a singular dot of light.
How the light “burns” the film refers to a photochemical reaction that causes the film to change each time a photon of light hits photographic detectors, which are coated on the film. This causes the film to change and record the image in the photograph.
So each time you move the beam of light, the photons are “drawing” or burning a chemical reaction that later develops into photos created by light writing.
*Some photos (Infinity Signs, Square, & “ART”) were taken by Julie Kooser and Utilized with Permission*