Lightpainting The Playground (Original Photos)

Being a photographer, you're pretty much permanently on the search for unique photo opportunities, whether it be street photography, landscape, cityscape etc. Myself? I'm always on the search for long exposure photos...there's just something amazing about giving "movement" to an otherwise static scene. So, have a quick look at the long exposure photo below that I took. Hopefully you're wondering how it came to life? Great! Let's get started.

Our city has a variety of public parks located throughout the suburbs. In the slightly more seedy areas, they're usually a dumping ground for homeless people and drug deals, but here, in the more "upmarket" areas, they're nothing more than a bit of space that no-one seems to use. No children play outside here, since an Xbox One provides far more entertainment. Anyway, a friend of mine lives right across the road from one of these parks, and we would often end up scattered in the park when his house parties started to get a bit too large.

A screenshot from Google Streetview - you can see a merry-go-round in the middle of it. Not exactly a place for fun photography projects right?

One evening, we had ended up in the park as per usual, and a few of us where trying to stay on a rather fast merry-go-round, with varying degrees of success. However, while it was amusing watching fully grown adults being flung off the merry-go-round, I had a minor brainwave - here's a moveable object, surrounded by lots of static objects. If I somehow made a long exposure of this, it could make for a great photo!

Knowing that I would have to utilize the full motion of the merry-go-round, I made a note to find some lights to attach to it - light trails were one of my tried and tested methods that would make a photo far more interesting to look at. After hitting a few dead ends, I eventually "borrowed" two small lights from the work studio, and returned one night to tie them to the merry-go-round. Camera set up and ready to go, it was time to take some photos - with a 10 second exposure.

And the results were...pretty dismal to be honest. The idea was decent, but the choice of lights just didn't make the scene interesting enough. Knowing that there was potential here, I didn't immediately give up, but still felt a bit let down.

For the photo, I had enlisted the help of my aforementioned friend who lives across the road (safety in numbers and all that jazz). Since the night was still young, we stayed in the park for a few hours after, running around like lunatics while waving lights in the hopes of getting a good photo. One of his neighbours eventually came outside and asked if we were ok (she hadn't seen the camera set up, and seemed quite concerned for our mental health. We assured her that everything was fine).

Yeah...our drawing skills need work.

Not overly satisfied with the results, I set out to find a more unique lighting solution. The idea of a single strip of LED lights sounded better, but it would just be one colour...not that eye catching. After a few weeks of pondering, the final solution presented itself at the most unexpected time.

A work colleague - who is an enormous Star Wars fan - filmed a few videos of his son playing with a new toy lightsaber, and decided to share it with the rest of the office. The toy made loads of annoying 8-bit sounding noises when swung, but what caught my attention was the fact that it was comprised of various different colours. I immediately asked him where he bought it from, and drove to that exact toy store to get my own one. Problem solved (hopefully).

That evening, after spending a mere $1 on my own toy lightsaber, I was back in the park, armed with my camera equipment, and a roll of tape to help stick the lightsaber to the merry-go-round. Set up complete, I positioned my camera, dialed in an exposure time of 10 seconds, spun the merry-go-round, and hoped for the best.

And look at that - what a difference!

This was a unique photo for one interesting reason - I literally only took one picture of this set up. There was no "hey, that looked nice, let's take another" moment. Nope. I took the photo you see here, figured it was good enough, and proceeded to remove my toy lightsaber from its temporary home. Why only one photo? I'm not sure to be honest, but I think it worked.

However, that didn't stop me from running around again and experimenting with a few different objects, including the slide pictured below. The fun was eventually cut short when the toy lightsaber decided to die an early death, and it has never worked since. It was great while it lasted...but I guess you get what you pay for.

Fun fact: Look at the open window located just above the silver car... can you see the person standing there? Yes, it's the same lady from the previous encounter watching us, who must have been extra confused this time.

So, if you're feeling a bit unmotivated, just remember that unique photo opportunities can present themselves at the most random times - you just have to get out there and keep looking for them.

DISCLAIMER: All photos are my own original work.

Equipment used:

Canon 6D
Tokina 10-17mm fisheye lens
Lightroom CC
Also, the cheap lightsaber that broke counts too