Fantasia
by
GordonComment by Gordon: Thanks again for all the comments! Here's some more info on how it was done.
It was a 30 second shot, in a dark room. I used a mag-lite (flashlight/ torch in Europe) to draw the light trails in, moving the light around against the white background where I wanted it. I flicked the light across the paintbrush a few times and stroked around under the edges to highlight those too, and stuck it into the bristles from behind to add the glow.
I used a aluminium/ aluminum/ tin (call it what you will!) foil cover on the end of the light to help me shape it appropriately - you can see the effect of that in the edge 'swirls' that have texture to them. Easy to bend/shape the end of the light by squishing the foil.
I figured I wanted more paint/light at the tip of the brush so I concentrated it a bit more heavily there.
The blue colour comes from setting a custom white balance using a reference card prior to the shot, then tuning it slightly in Photoshop.
I did a small amount of cloning to remove some small light flares and dust - also there was a pencil line on the back board where I'd traced out and planned the shot ahead of times which was blurred out of the final shot. The light trails and everything else you see are as shot - nothing was added, only cleaned up or removed - and even then not much at all.
Took about 15 minutes to do the whole thing from concept to finished result.
Message edited by author 2004-02-06 08:47:44. 
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