One of the things that sets us apart from other photo booths in Toledo is that we love to create custom photo experiences for our clients. So when Chief Scientist Carl Nelson from Imagination Station called me to see if I could do Light Painting at their Bash, I was ecstatic. We had been looking for the perfect event to do this at for the past few years, and The Bash was it!
What is Light Painting and how does it work?
Light Painting is a mix of the Art of Photography and the Science of Light. Basically, you leave the camera shutter open for a few seconds longer than you do for a normal picture. By doing this, the camera will then record the light waves after the initial photo is taken, but does not get the source of the light waves in the photo. This effect works best in a completely dark room.
How we did it
We were located inside the Think Tank room at the Imagination Station for The Bash. This provided us with a totally dark room. We arrived early enough to not only get set up but also for my team to practice and experiment with the light sources. One of the first things we tried was an LED mini string light that Mark from Imagination Station tried. You can see in his picture that it did produce an interesting effect. However, we found out that it was just too long to use. After twirling it a few times, it got stuck on one of the hanging overhead lights in the room. Mark also provided us with LED paint brushes, and a few different light sticks, and my team’s favorite, the “wiggly” wand. Of course, I also brought a few of my own.
What We Learned
We learned (which I already knew) that when you are doing light painting, you don’t want the light source to go in front of your face. The light streaks completely cover your face if you do, as you can see in the practice photos above.
After a little practice with the different light sources, we were ready to go, and oh what fun we had. And so did the guests! We asked the guests whether they wanted to do the lighting themselves or have us do it. Most of them wanted us to do it for them, but there were a few brave souls who took a chance and had a blast!
Our team had a blast “painting the canvas” with light and became very creative throughout the night.
You can see the entire Light Painting Photo Booth gallery on my website: https://kurtnphoto.zenfolio.com/imagination-station-bash-2026
For more information about Kurt Nielsen Photography, please visit my website. To schedule a time to talk about your event or book my photo booth services, please call or text me at (419) 885-7153.