I also learnt how to perfect light painting, working out which shutter speeds work best on my two cameras : Olympus OM 10 Film SLR camera, as well as my Canon EOS 600D digital SLR camera. When working with both, I found that the B setting worked best on my Olympus camera, which meant that I could keep the shutter open for as long as possible, although sometimes I kept it open for too long and the picture became over-exposed and not as detailed. With the Canon, I found that using the shutter speed of 10/1 second worked the best for that camera, and what I wanted to do with the shot. I used a red laser pen for my shots, and one of my favourites was this one :
However, I found that it didn't give me enough time to perfect my writing in the shot! I think that it gave a great effect, especially as I shot it in pitch black light.
Throughout the project, the artists that I looked at various artists that inspired me; Janne Parviainen, Pablo Picasso and Patrick Rochon. I found there work interesting to research and helped me to experiment more in my own photographs. My favourite artist that I looked at this project was probably Janne Parvianinen, as I found the light paintings of the skeletons among a 'family gathering' really inspirational.
Some things during this project didn't work, I sometimes found that my pictures weren't focused properly, so they came out blurry when developing them. I also found that working out the shutter speed for my light paintings was tricky - trying them at 5 seconds, 10 seconds and 20 seconds to see which worked best. I found that a different time worked best for each separate photograph, so it was difficult to work out which time worked with which photograph, and this took time, but for quite a few of my photographs, the timings worked well. For example, these ones didn't turn out quite right:
Using GlowDoodle
Using the digital SLRs.
For the next project, I think that I will try and experiment a bit more with my work, and try and improve on the things that don't go so well, instead of just focusing on the photographs that have worked. I will also try and take a variety of different photos, including different locations, and light settings etc...