Those beautiful Sparkler Portraits…

Looks so fun, right?!

It is!

Looks so easy, right?!

(for me) Not quite.

HAHA!

The painting with light bit was pretty easy for me to grasp.

The whole freeze my subject and pair it with a beautiful sparkler painting… a bit harder. haha!

With a line up of Fall weddings, I wanted to familiarize myself with the basics of sparkler exits (which are pretty easy peasy if you know how to operate your camera/flash!!) But, I also wanted to dig deeper into painting with light for portraits.

Callie (my most amazing and fav mentor out there!) met me and our friend Sachel at the beach with a few couples (THANK YOU ALL!!) to practice some sparkler fun!

Some things I learned about sparkler portraits:

Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it sure does help. haha! For real. Don’t give up. By the end of the night I was successfully writing the word “love” and I was so stoked!

Choose your couple’s pose wisely. Especially if you are still brand new at this, don’t ask for a dip. You need them to hold that pose nice and still as the flash fires for it to come out nicely! Start simple.

Have an assistant. Whether it be a bridesmaid or a second shooter, when painting around your subject and trying to photograph you’ll appreciate the extra hands! Trust me. There were three photographers out there and we were still having a time! hahahahah!

Have something on hand to illuminate your subject. You’ll need something to hold up by your subjects faces to help lock focus. They can hold up their phone, you can lock focus, and they can put it away OR  you or your assistant can illuminated their faces with a flash light, lock focus, before you press the shutter all the way!

And last but not least..

Know your camera & flash. I had never used Second Curtain Sync mode and had NO idea how to access it, until I was preparing for this mentor session. If I’d just shown up to a wedding and tried to wing it, I would have been screwed.

Here is a shot I got while I was behind the camera, and one of the girls was painting with the sparkler!

And the last two were just the couples painting with light, not portraits, no flash. 🙂

It was quite an experience. Very overwhelming actually. hahah! But it was SO much fun, and practicing WITH sparklers gave me more knowledge than just sitting reading a blog. So as much as I know this may help, I also encourage you to get out there and TRY it for yourselves!!

 

BEST OF LUCK! Happy painting 🙂