Christmas tree light-painting tutorial

I had great fun playing with long exposure on a point and click digital camera, the room wasn't really bright enough for most photography, especially with my unsteady hands, which turned out to be the perfect way to get some great effects with light painting. All you need is a camera, a dimly lit room and a christmas tree full of fairy lights and reflective baubles.

I've been getting festive the last few weeks, the house is full of baubles and fake plastic trees, present making is well underway so the house is strewn with wool (no change there) and last night we finally cracked out the lebruchen and the pink plastic tree all of my very own. 

To get these pictures I experimented mainly by taking a shot while moving, sometimes round in circles like the one above, sometimes while shaking the camera up and down or side to side, sometimes forwards and backwards. They all made different effects.

It helps to have a lot of different reflective textures and lights as these all produce different results, which a christmas tree full of baubles is perfect for.

These would make fantastic Christmas or Yule cards, christmas trees are nearly always beautiful and I love the pagan history behind them, but I've seen so many pictures of sparkling trees with a pile of pressies under them they can sometimes blur into one and it's not everyones style (I personally love me some traditional christmas stuff though.)

This technique doesn't need a christmas tree though, you could probably get some great effects with any reflective material or light source, there's some amazing light artists out there, just pop it into google or pinterest and get inspired.

Thanks for reading and I'll hopefully have a new camera of my very own again soon.

Happy yule and Merry Mince pie season

Frocktopus

xxx