Tom and James, our foreign exchange students from Beijing were surprised at how dark our nights are. Tom, being very interested in photography wanted to take some photos of the night sky. We headed up a long abandoned road that leads up to a big Oak tree where in the past kids would go to do…. well things they’re not supposed to. Tom and James were very excited to see the Big Dipper and other constellations they had never seen. Ben acted like an astronomer armed with his star map and my iPhone as a compass.

After staring at the stars for a bit, I thought of using our phones to do some light painting. This is something Tom and James had never done. With Tom at the helm of the camera, the rest of us ran around in the dark waving our phones and painting designs in the sky. I think James enjoyed it the most. He would quickly draw something and then run back to the camera to see what it had captured. This fun made me miss my camera all too much. I think it’s time to start saving for a new one!

Once we got home I was excited to show everyone one of the first light painting videos I ever saw way back in 2007 by Lichtfaktor titled Starwars VS Startrek. [button link="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlWnpz0Di90" color="default" target="lightbox" size="small"]Watch Video[/button]

[box style="note"]You can see more of Lichtfaktor’s videos on YouTube; pretty awesome stuff combining stop motion, long exposures and a lot of work![/box]

• Tweet