Ghost Mode: Becoming Invisible in Your Night Photo When Light Painting

Want to walk through your own night photo while remaining invisible? It'd be a great superpower for light painting. It turns out night photographers do it all the time. And it’s not Photoshop magic. It’s a simple trick for light painting that works with long exposure night photography that will take your night photography to the next level.

The Superpower of Invisibility

You don't have to be a mutant to become invisible. You don't need an X-gene. None of that. Through the magic of long exposure night photography, you can walk in front of your camera while your camera's shutter is open and never appear in the photo! How is this even possible?

The Science-y Explanation (Without the Headache)

1. Movement Creates Invisibility

Your camera sensor "builds" your image over time. It's collecting light, after all. If you don't stand still in one place long enough, or aren't lit well enough to register, you never "exist" to the camera. Cool, huh?

Here's an example. If you were to photograph someone standing to the side shooting a gun at a target during the day, you wouldn't expect the bullet to show up in your photo, would you? Of course not. It's traveling too fast. And so it is with long exposure night photos.

If you're creating a night photo, it's by nature a long exposure. It's dark, after all! It takes a while for that dim light to register—maybe 15 seconds, 30 seconds, or even several minutes or hours, depending on your shot. So in that same way that you're not going to photograph a bullet during the day, you're also not going to capture a bird flying or yourself walking at night. You're moving too fast. And there's not enough light anyway.

Generally, you must stand in one place for at least ten percent of the total exposure time for you to begin showing up in the photo. And even then, you'll begin showing up as a faint dark smudge, barely noticeable in the photo. For a full moon photo with a two-minute exposure, ten percent is a full 12 seconds. And even for a "quick" 15-second photo, that's still 1.5 seconds! Just keep moving!

2.) You’re Just Not Bright Enough (and That’s a Good Thing!)

You are undoubtedly a beautiful, radiant being. Perhaps you've been told that your chakras glow bright and strong. But most likely, you still don't glow enough to show up easily if you are walking through the scene in your long exposure night photo.

In fact, if you're doing light painting with your night photography, you're undoubtedly dressed in dark clothes.

Regardless, you're moving, never standing still.

You're in Ghost Mode.

How Light Painters Use This to Their Advantage

This is one of the best perks of light painting subjects: you can physically walk through your shot without being in your shot. Want to light the far wall of an abandoned barn? No problem. Just walk through the frame while the shutter’s open. As long as you don’t stand still in a beam of light for too long or shine your flashlight on yourself, you’ll remain invisible.

This means you can "paint" from multiple angles during one exposure—side lighting, backlighting, even adding a pop of color gel—without needing to clone yourself out in Photoshop later. Think of all the lighting possibilities...

By the way, I almost always light paint the photo during a single exposure. It's more fun that way. And I also like to get as close to what I want as possible out in the field. That way, my post-processing is mostly about aesthetics, such as denoising, color correction, sharpening, contrast, and other typical processes—almost all the same kinds of adjustments photographers have been making in their darkrooms for decades.

When You Might Begin Appearing in your Photo

Your superpower of invisibility may disappear if you do the following when taking your photo:

• Wear light or reflective clothing

• Shine a flashlight on yourself mistakenly

• Stand still in one spot for more than ten percent of your photo

• Get lit by another light source (like your own light, street lamps, or passing cars)

Even then, you're likely to "register" as a weird ghostly blob. Sometimes, night photographers do this on purpose to create a ghostly, otherworldly effect. They can purposely shine a flashlight on themselves or stand still for part of the long exposure, looking very spectral and eerie.

Final Thoughts

When light painting, dress dark. Some of the light drawing photographers dress almost like ninjas, covering their faces and hands so that their lights do not reflect off their skin so much. In fact, many of us who do light painting will take specific measures to make certain that the light doesn't reflect off our face or hands. And of course, we make sure we never shine the light directly into the camera (unless we want to, obviously).

The act of light painting subjects is a performance, a technique. Part of that performance is about constant movement, deliberate control of light, and selectively blocking or revealing parts of the scene to create your vision.

It's time you initiate Ghost Mode. Have that superpower of invisibility take your night photography to new heights.