Pro Techniques

One of the things that makes a photograph successful is that attention is directed to the subject. This can be done with good lighting, muted backgrounds, or graphic design. An important design element that directs our attention into the heart of a picture is called a leading line. This is a line that usually begins at the bottom of the composition and extends into the heart of the scene...

The intriguing thing about lightpainting is you never know exactly what you’re going to get. And whatever you get, you won’t get it again. That’s part of the technique’s appeal: you’re creating a one-of-a-kind photograph.

Simply, a lightpainting photo is an image made with a handheld, constant light source in a dark room or environment. The camera’s sensor captures only what you choose to illuminate. Lightpainting images can range from relatively simple to fairly complicated. Striking photos can be created indoors with nothing more than a still life subject, a tabletop to put it on, and a small LED penlight to light it. Or you can think big: how about a mega-powerful spotlight illuminating prairie land in the Grand Tetons or a mesa in Monument Valley?

Lise Gagné is a stock photographer from Quebec City, Canada. An exclusive contributor with istockphoto.com since her first photo submission in 2003, she is a superstar on the popular microstock website.

Lise’s story is one of passion, persistence, ingenuity, and timing. As a graphic designer she often used photography in her work. One day, when searching for an image she needed for a project, she came across istockphoto.com and was immediately attracted to the idea of creating images for the then emerging market of RF (Royalty Free) images.

One reason that many photographers prefer working in a studio is because they can totally control all aspects of light, from its source to its power, temperature, and direction. To control light in a studio, photographers utilize a variety of light modifiers, including umbrellas, softboxes, light tables, and barn doors.

Shooting in the field...

Montana’s rich mining history dates back well over 100 years. In the year 1852, gold was first discovered southeast of Drummond, along Gold Creek, at a site that later became known as the Pioneer Mining District. But it wasn’t until a decade later, in 1862, that a group of prospectors from Colorado discovered gold along Grasshopper Creek, at what was to become the Bannack Town Site, which fueled the Montana gold rush.

The arctic sun was just about to make its brief dip below the mountainsto the north when I arrived at a cluster of strange monolithic rocks on the ridge. I cursed myself for not carrying my tripod on the evening hike, but I hadn’t expected to stumble on something quite so strange and photogenic. I braced myself on a tussock of soft tundra and began snapping images of the glowing rocks. I clicked the shutter, recomposed, then clicked again. As I made images, it occurred to me that I was quite possibly the first person to photograph these rocks. They weren’t marked on any map, and the nondescript ridge was just one of many in this part of the range. That, I thought to myself, is one of the great things about photography in the Brooks Range, it was unlikely that anyone had made the same composition before.

Wildlife photographers with any interest in photographing big Alaskan brown bears should certainly consider the McNeil River State Game Sanctuary, professed to have the highest concentration of large adult brown bears in the world with over 70 bears having been seen at any one time. The sanctuary is located on the Alaskan Peninsula about 100 air miles west of Homer and is only reachable by floatplane.