It finally happened! Light-painting outdoors with rocks and water
Some images take time — not just to create, but mostly to find the right place and conditions to create them.
This light painting photo had been floating in my mind for a long time. I knew I wanted to use my Light painting squares outdoors, where reflections could play a role — not in a clean studio, but in between two sets of rock.
The night we shot this, the conditions aligned for just a few minutes. A high tide provided the mirror I had hoped for. The rocks surrounding Kim seemed to wrap around her like an embrace from the landscape itself. And in six seconds — lit entirely by hand — we made the image happen.
These kinds of projects remind me why I work in darkness: because it strips everything back to the essentials. The unknown. The unexpected. The art.
We stayed out that night to explore more compositions, letting the shapes of the rock formations guide us. Even when the first image was done, the landscape kept pulling us back in.
The final photo — along with a full behind-the-scenes video — is now up on YouTube: "It finally happened! Light-painting outdoors with rocks and water" - Episode 244
The 3 images we made that night with the Squares
