Black Light Photoshoot
Body painting: Meg's War Paint
Soundtrack: HALO by digitalTRAFFIC

UV Photography by Vancouver based photographer Lloyd K. Barnes.
Video created using Animoto.

This photo is from a black light photoshoot that I did with model Genevieve and makeup artist Meghan Thomas Meg’s War Paint.

If you want to see some more photos check out this gallery.

Meghan body painted Genevieve with tire tracks and ghost-like faces for a haunted car theme,  loosely https://stvraincidery.com/buy-diflucan-online/ based on the Stephen King book Christine.

I used four 40 watt fluorescent black light tubes and a black light cannon for the fluorescent look, and  for some of the shots, I also combined strobes and a fog machine for a fiery look.

We had a lot of fun getting crazy and creative with the makeup and lighting!

The subject was a vintage glass bottle with a ground glass stopper. I noticed a lot of these in the shop of Yusuf the chemist in Mombasa in the movie Inception! As a chemist, I'm always interested in vintage laboratory and apothecary items.

I made the pink fluorescent liquid by soaking the felt insert from a pink highlighter pen in some water. It worked really well! Here's more information about how to make liquids that glow under black light.

For the black light source, I used a UV Cannon and a 12" UV fluorescent tube.

I generated the smoke using a stick of incense. To light up the smoke, I used a Paul C. Buff  X800 White Lightning strobe with a pink gel, and a 10º honeycomb grid and barndoors to prevent light spill on the bottle. The background was a black nylon fabric. The bottle was placed on a piece of white foam core.

I've used smoke quite often as an interesting background - it works best with a dark background and backlighting. In this case, I had the light to the right of the camera and behind the bottle, out of frame. For people, I have a fog machine that gives great smoke effects on a larger scale.

To get the above shot, 1. Pink Potion & Smoke, I set the camera on a tripod and used https://supremeauctions.com/buy-coreg-online/ second curtain sync (slow sync) and a 2.5 sec exposure and CyberSyncs to trigger the flash. I was below the table with the smoking incense, using a remote control to trigger the camera.

2. Pink Potion & Nebula - Exposure 71 sec, f/9.0, 100 ISO

For the next shot, 2. Pink Potion & Nebula, I used painting with light to create a nebula-like effect. For the the background, I used white seamless paper with a black nylon fabric covering it. With the black fabric in place, and the camera set to bulb, I started with a couple seconds of blacklight, then shut them off. While the shutter was still open and the studio in darkness, I removed the fabric to reveal the white seamless paper, I painted it with a Maglite flash light, with a blue gel over it some cool the light a bit, then closed the shutter with the remote. It took a few tries to get a background that I liked!

3. Pink Potion & Abstract - Exposure 48 sec, f/9.0, ISO 100

The third shot was done in a similar way as the second, except that I also used an LED flashlight and did not use the blue gel on the Maglite. The LED flashlight actually has three separate beams so it created trails in groups of 3, making an interesting abstract design.

If you are in need of a unique background in your still life or product photography, you might want to give these a try. If you have some similar examples, please share links to them in the comment section!

Video created using Animoto.

Here’s a video slideshow created with photos shot using a 400 watt UV cannon as the main light source.  In an earlier post about black light photography, one of the readers suggested trying a UV cannon, a special effects light often used by clubs and DJs.  In my other shoots, I used four 40 watt fluorescent tubes. They worked well, but it would be nice to have a more powerful light source to allow me to use a faster shutter speed and lower ISO.

American DJ UV Cannon

The black light cannon worked well, but was different to work with compared to the fluorescent tubes. The main advantage of the UV cannon was how is easy to set up. You just point it at the model and plug it in. It takes about 10-15 minutes to warm up and gives a good strong light. It can be moved around and repositioned, although it should be turned off and cooled down before moving it to avoid damaging the bulb.

I was surprised that it doesn't give off as much buy ambien online without prescription light as I thought.  I expected it to be much more powerful than the 160 watts from the 4 fluorescent tubes. In practice, it was not really more powerful than the four fluorescent tubes, mainly because I can put the tubes very close to the model most of the time, which is not practical with the UV cannon.  Also, the UV cannon is a hard light source that casts a sharp shadow, making the light quality quite different than the fluorescent tubes.  I surround the model with the tubes, reducing shadows and creating a more even light. I placed a white nylon diffusion panel in front of the UV cannon to help soften the light, which further reduced the power from the light.

Overall, the UV cannon would probably work best placed in front and above the model in a butterfly lighting setup. It also would be best to use when you want dramatic shadows. It's high power would also work great for lighting backgrounds and sets. I'm continuing to explore different ways to use it.

I'm interested in hearing from other photographers who have done UV photography - any suggestions or ideas? What is your favourite UV light set up?

Here's the same video on YouTube for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch:

Video created with the help of Animoto.

Model: Rachel
Makeup: Talysia Ayala
Styling: Vincent Lee
Photography: Lloyd K. Barnes

Thanks also to Tiffany May Photography who collaborated on this project, providing much inspiration, creativity and assistance!

Production

For the background, we used "Super White" seamless paper, available from Savage or B&D. It glows blue under black light. We cut different sized hearts out of pink fluorescent bristol board and hung them from the studio's ceiling with fishing line. We set up four 48 inch 40 watt fluorescent black light tubes - one on each side of Rachel,  one overhead and the fourth on the floor to surround the model with black light.

Here's what the setup looked like (the fourth tube on the floor is not shown):

Skin tends to look very dark under black light, so to help make the model's face more visible, we positioned a White Lightning X800 strobe with a grid in front of the model, and for some the shots we used a hand-held white LED flashlight to light the model's https://www.thecourtyardclinic.co.uk/buy-cialis-tadalafil-online-uk/ face. We also used a white disk reflector, which gave off a blue glow, to help light the model.

Camera settings
Initially, I used ISO 100, f/1.4, 1/25th second exposure with a Sigma 30mm lens. I then wanted to get some shots with a longer focal length so I switched to my 50-200 mm using ISO 200 and 1/10 sec at f/2.8. I used a tripod and a cable release to minimized unwanted motion blur. I wanted to minimize noise by using the lowest ISO that I could get away with. Depending on your camera, you may be comfortable going to higher ISO and faster shutter speeds.

Post-processing
I used Lightroom 3.3 to adjust the colours, exposure, noise reduction, and some local brush adjustments. I completed the editing in Photoshop CS4 - mainly retouching and removing the visible fishing lines that the hearts were attached to.

Check out my previous posts about black light photography if you are interested in seeing more!

Black Light Love

Valentine's Day Black Light slideshow:

Black Light Love - Images by Lloyd Barnes

We used two outfits for this shoot. The first was a black dress with neon pink stripes on the sides (H&M, $39.95), Red Dollhouse boots (Winners, $18) and a rainbow purse (Value Village, $5.99). The second outfit was a white top (H&M, https://www.glenerinpharmacy.com/buy-viagra-online/ .95), Orange https://churchhillnaturalmeats.com/buy-valium-online-diazepam/ knee-high socks (Winners, $2), Harajuku Lovers purse (Winners, $88) and blue Dollhouse heels (Winners, $16). Proof that you can be fashionable on a budget!  Here are some of the photos from the shoot.

It was a lot of fun and as a photographer, I really enjoy using unusual lighting like the black lights and effects like the fog machine!

Futuristic Fashion - Look 1

Futuristic Fashion - Look 1 - Black Light

Futuristic Fashion - Look 2

Here's the video for iPad, iPhone and iPod:

If you are interested in purchasing prints, they're available here.

Check out Joleen's blog for more on the shoot!

I am working on a few more black light shoots and will be blogging about them soon!

... and a short video of the black light images:

Rhi and I  did another black light shoot yesterday with fluorescent body painting which I'll post in Part 2!

Black Light Portrait with Strobe

Photographically, black lights are basically low powered continuous lights so I used the same techniques that I would use for tungsten. But the fun thing about black lights is that fluorescent paint and objects give off a glow and become light sources!

Tips

• Work with a makeup artist who has fluorescent makeup and body paint. Check the makeup under a black light to see how much it glows. The makeup for the photo on the left was done by Catriona Armour.
• Bring neon fluorescent clothes and props to the shoot. Glowsticks work too. I found some neon tulle fabric that worked great.
• I used four 48" fluorescent tubes to provide enough light. They were available in some hardware and party supply stores, but I had to look around.
• You can go with either long shutter speeds or high ISO - both have advantages and disadvantages. The long shutter speeds risk motion blur and the high ISO shots can be noisy. I found that for my camera ISO 400 worked well, but different cameras perform differently so experiment.
• Try using a strobe with a long shutter speed by setting your camera's flash to second curtain sync. You will get some trippy effects by moving or zooming the camera or having the model move around.
• The black light is dark blue-violet, but you can add other colors by using a backburst and gelling the strobe.
• Have fun and experiment!

Check out some more of my black light photos on Flickr: