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Ever seen a photo like this? Where lights just appear out of no-where making totally random but really cool photos? and just thought to yourself.. Woah i really want to do that!!

Well… Now You Can!!

Alex’s Photography Tutorial #1 – Light Graffiti

Hi There! Welcome to my first tutorial of photography. If you didn’t read my introduction post of what i will be doing every week (kinda obvious now) then just scroll down a bit and find the first post about Photography!

In today’s article I will be teaching you about Light Graffiti. it’s really simple! as demonstrated in the photo I took (last weekend in fact) it’s obvious to see that it will include you, and well some lights. simple.  But the hard thing that always questions people and gets people really really confused is how making the image to take a photo over a period of time. This is known as shutter speed! Shutter speed is the speed (measured in seconds) which it takes the photo at (or for the more technical, the time it takes to open and close the shutter allowing more/less light into the reflective mirror onto the photographic film or card to produce an image)

So. How can YOU achieve this!? So grab the nearest digital camera, and lets turn it on. yup.. the big button with power on it. Great start! You on your way to producing your first light graffiti. Next thing is change your settings (if you have a digital camera or SLR (Single reflex lense), If you have a dial on your camera with different modes, and weird icons and letters, Find the S on the dial. it stands for shutter speed, for Smaller digital cameras, it varies, you may not have that feature, if you do it’s most likely under manual mode, so go straight to google or your nearest instruction manual in the bin or attic somewhere and find out!

Now when you’ve found your shutter speed mode, using the appropriate buttons (it might be arrows, or a mini joystick in my case) you can change the shutter speed, you will notice it will goes up in seconds, from 8 (or more) seconds, to 1/1000th of a second (thats fast) it’s best to keep everything else on manual for this. you will want to use a longer shutter speed, so 5 seconds or more is best ( the more, the better patterns, light you will get!)

Now, it’s vital (viper) you do this in a dark, at night or in a dark room, you MUST must must must do it in the dark, otherwise it WILL NOT work! right. got that? next grab a torch (different colours for variety, different torches whatever that has a light will work!) now..  make sure your camera is on a table, or on a tripod if you have one, it’s again a MUST to keep the camera still. rest it on something, otherwise your picture will be blurry! right. set the timer! so you can get away in time for the photo, or better yet! get a friend or parent or someone to press the button. once it takes the photo, start making patterns! it takes a few practices to get it right, but you will get it! and you have light graffiti! make patterns, write your name! get someone to stand extremley still and write names and devil horns etc!

So that’s really all i can write, so it dosn’t get boring.. and my fingers hurt! But please please leave comments for any questions or comments! I will answer! + if you manage to do it! Please send me a link to the photo or email it to me!

I will feature some of the photos (or the best one) in my next article for everyone to see!

So get cracking! get shooting! (camera wise)

Thanks for reading!

Alex!