Alien Domes ( with Xmas dome 21/12/11 )

When I first saw some domes in the middle of the year I spent many a sleepless night trying to work out how they hell they were created. I knew that there was some type of tool involved as they were too geometrically perfect. I played aroun dwith my kids Spirograph for inspiration and asked friends if they had any ideas but alas I was at a loss. I could create some crappy domes with a LED attached to the end of a stick and manually swung back and forth, but they were nothing like the awesome ones I saw a handfull of other light painters do. I eventually gave up until late September when I randomly happened to do another google search on dome creation and to my suprise and enjoyment found the secret had been revealed and there were a few instructions now on creating your own dome. That's when the journey started.

I had all the tools to create my first light painted dome mid November although my tool to create the dome was very roughly put together and the next time I went to use I had spent an hour getting ready and moving furniture around only to have it break when I was ready to shoot. The new tool is all Steel and Aluminium and as tough as you need. I'm still need a better way of mounting the LEDs themselves and most likely a better switch than the one that comes with the cheap LEDs

C&C welcome
These are all still a bit rough as I'm still working on technique and scouting locations that are suitable as a lot of places are too strongly illuminated at night

#1 First Dome ( November 2011 )


Since then Ive created 2 more tools, got some more LED lights - The packs of 20 are dirt cheap although 30 LEDs are a much better number. The White domes I have created are 30 LEDs, the coloured ones are 20s

#2 My First outdoor dome


and a few new ones taken last night with my Creation tool Mark #2 and Multicoloured LED lights

#3 The Front Door


#4 Local church


#5 Communication tower


Now the challenge is to come up with something new and original. I've got ideas but I'm not going to share them right now.

 

I've never seen anything like this before...they look great!

 

Looks good! after seeing these on facebook I looked up how to do it :O.

The 30 LED ones do look quite a lot better, now the challenge will be to get 30 LED coloured strips, or alternatively you could use a smaller 'tool' say steal one from a child's 'piece of equipment'.

 

Really digging these Michael. Would love to see some of these done at night time around scenic landscapes (i.e. waterfalls). Would look amazing.

 

So i guess you're keeping your trade secrets!

 

Dude, don't tease us, show us your tool.

 

Very nice

Google is your friend

 

These are great

 

http://longexposuretips.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-to-light-painted-domes.html

 

Hey, these are back! I did a quick experiment earlier last month too. Gotta say, yours turned out a lot better than mine. I spaced my LEDs out a bit too much

 

A few new ones taken yesterday. The domes themselves are a bit flaky but it was more a test and the subjects had to head home for a nap !


#6 Abduction


#7 Fascination

 

Holy jesus,

I love how they're so perfect! Esp at the angle of #6. It looks almost mathematically calculated.

These would go really cool in natural landscapes to juxtapose with your sort of artificial piece of light architecture.

 

These are great, it was a shame the origonal guy gave up his secret.

A few guys from an other forum had worked it out but we were keeping the secret ..

I actually realy like the one with the baby in it..

Thanks for sharing.

MATT

 

Awesome stuff. Saw this a while back on flickr but never investigated it; definitely something i'd love to do one day.

 

A few more taken yesterday evening

Summoning the Domes


Dome Vortex


and Finally I present to OCAU
Christmas Dome

 

how do you get the "tool" out of the image?

 

They are 30 second plus exposures. As long as you dont stand there for long you wont be seen. The ones with kids I then fire a flash off during the exposure to "freeze" them. They still need to keep really still - most of my attempts had too much ambient movement

 

I did something like this for one of my uni assessments, of course mine just involved me swinging around an LED, wish I had known about bike wheels back then, they look amazing!
Great work.
(All my LED's died and i stopped )

 

it's popping up everywhere. at a bus stop, i saw a camera advert with lightdomes. it was either for the nex or pen..

 

I still don't understand how to make them but I like the shiny pictures.