One of the funnest parts of shooting images at night as well as general photography is researching and finding new tools and gadgets to add to the photographer’s toolbox. Waiting for the mailman to drive down the street has become the second funnest activity. There are so many different household tools available for under twenty-thirty dollars that can set your images apart from others and leave anyone wondering how the image was created. Once hooked on the creative tool search, anything that creates light or perhaps diffuses light in an interesting way will end up in the shopping carriage at Walmart. Being creative allows you to create compositions that would otherwise need expensive lights to reproduce and may not match the same effect.

Those in fashion design or costume creation would possibly be familiar with a product called “EL Wire” or electroluminescent wire. The wire itself glows in a range of colors and is powered by a small battery pack. The wire is designed to be sewn into fabric for special effects. Electroluminescent Wire can be found on numerous sites online, Amazon carries a large variety for only a couple dollars. Using electroluminescent wire in a photography aspect can be used for many different effects. A orange red wire waved in a vertical movement can create a fire effect while a blue teal color wire whipped in a horizontal motion can create an effect similar to water. The image below is an example of the blue electroluminescent wire being waved up and down around the chair. The human figure was drawn in the same image using a flashlight. Depending on what the image is going to be, the camera’s settings will have to reflect all that will need to be done in the image. The EL wire makes a ghostly light appearance in the image which would be a mess to try and capture in a layer in Photoshop. Any other additions to the image would be easier to add while the camera’s shutter is open. The image above for example, was created in one capture meaning the shutter was held up while I created the ocean with the EL wire and drew a human figure on the chair.

While rummaging through the aisles of a soon to be closed Kmart, the hardware section was a gold mine. A 120 led work light which would be commonly found in a garage was once again in the shopping carriage. A lot of the tools are easier to use if it’s rechargeable or battery operated with the intent to use outdoors, indoors having a plugin light could benefit in that situation. The work light provides an even amount of white light which can be used for highlighting details in an object or landscape. In the image below, a car is photographed in two stages, the shutter settings on the camera was adjusted to show the running lights in the correct exposure, and a second image with the settings for the detail light (work light). The image can be improved with attention to how the light bar itself is shown to the camera. The white above the car is the actually light and the movement of it during the photo. If the light was facing away from the camera but pointing at the car, the white above the car would not be shown. Being creative with everyday household tools allows you to create compositions that would otherwise need expensive lights to reproduce.