Creative Flashing

[boris152]

This is one of my very rare night photography attempts. To give credit where credit is due, I took the picture, but it was all my brother's idea. In case some of you are unfamiliar with the equipment in my brother's hands, it's an electro-pneumatic paintball marker (a Dye Matrix) that, fully set up, costs more than my photo gear!

The exposure is over a minute and a half, and my brother is lit by me hand-holding the flash. I then lay at his feet and tried to flash the steady stream of paintballs (think about 20 per second) and only managed to get two in the picture with about 5 flash bursts. Photoshop elements was only used to adjust color (something I'm not the greatest at), and no other electronic messings-with were used.

In the end, it took us noobs almost two hours of work in almost complete darkness on a damp night to make this shot. Let me know if you think the result justifies the effort.

 

[NoChance]

hmm... It is an idea, but! What you could do is take it not at night, but at dusk. So that there is still light, maybe not use a flash and use a longer exposure? That way it will have more natural looking lighting, also that angle isnt really doing it for me. Good Idea though. Credit for originality.

 

[JDS]

If you do it at dusk and use a longer exposure, you might get trails of paintballs rather than 'freezing' them in mid-air. Might be a neat effect also.

I think this is a pretty neat idea though..I kinda like it.

 

[boris152]

The only problem I see with doing it at dusk is that it would be hard for my brother to hold the pose the whole time. He actually isn't standing there for most of this exposure. And you'd lose the star trails, not that they show up the greatest.

Actually, the problem is my brother himself. He wanted a night shot and is just about the most stubborn person I know.

As for the angle, I think I agree, but that's something I need help on. I'll be darned if I can figure out how to make it really work, especially trying to frame it with a flashlight like I tried.

Again, I'll give credit where credit is due. I'll tell my brother you liked his idea. Thanks for the tips!