Light Painting with Russell Klimas


Intro by Chamira Young

Today we want to highlight the fantastic photographer and artist Russell Klimas. He creates eye-catching, unique light paintings using his Platypod. In this post, he shares his process step by step, including how to hang his camera from the ceiling to get an overhead look! Check it out below for some serious inspiration.

In Russell’s words from his blog:

In order to to get to get surreal images that look like your camera is hanging in the air without a drone and get a clean image, this is how you do it! Now, full disclosure, I have the blessing of being in a space with 14ft ceilings that allows me to get this much room with a 24mm lens. However, I have successfully also done this with a couple of c-Stands and a long piece of somewhat thin wood as well. Forgive me for not remembering the measurements, as it’s been over a year. I used this video as a basis for the idea with the c-stands.

If you would prefer to watch a video of the process, check it out below:



The Process

If you are going to go the c-stand route and want to capture people, then I recommend using a 12mm or 14mm lens, as you won’t be able to get 14ft high with c-stands. Of course the base of the c-stands will show up, so you’ll need to be cautious of those when light painting and edit them out later. You can use a simple wood to screw attachment or a Platypod for this setup.

Back to 14ft up, one of the most important pieces to this setup is a Platypod. They run around $100 dollars and have been invaluable to me. There is a little screw portion at the top of the Playtpod (circled in red) that you will flip onto the back and then attach your camera to. Here are pictures to help understand that process:



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Once you have the Platypod attached, it’s more than likely not going to be a tight fit, and that’s okay. As you’ll see in the below picture, I have a couple of small nails that I’ve hammered into wood, as well as some bike hooks. I make sure to have a strap or some other kind of solid material to latch onto the camera and hang onto the bike hooks for safety. Since the camera hangs on the ends of the nails in order to be straight down, I want to be sure that it won’t fall and hurt my model or the camera. As always, use proper ladder safety when climbing this high and up.

Check out Russell’s full post here. And check out some of the final images below!



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