When nothing works!

We arrived at our location a bit too late that night, after a long day of driving. It’s a spot we know well—usually perfect for light painting. But this time, it was completely different. The tide was so high that the beach we normally shoot on had completely vanished. There was no room to move, no dry ground to set up, and certainly no way to create the kind of tube light painting images we had in mind.

In moments like this, the frustration is real. You plan everything out, you drive for hours, and when you get there, nothing works the way it’s supposed to. So what do you do when conditions fail you?

You adapt.

Tonight, our solution was to switch things up and shoot vertically. That simple change—rotating the camera—completely transformed what we could do with the space we had. It opened up new creative possibilities, even when the location felt like a dead end. With a vertical frame, the tube light trails became towering bursts of color, rising out of the darkness and turning a bad situation into something beautiful.

Other ways to salvage a tricky shoot like this might include shooting with a black background, tightening your composition with a longer focal length, or simply embracing the limitations and letting them push your creativity in a new direction.

This is tube light painting photography at its core—reacting, improvising, and making magic with what you’ve got.

If you’ve ever been in a similar situation, I’d love to hear how you adapted. Drop your go-to tips in the comments 💕