App Misuse: Nunchuck Light Painting

My favorite shape.

I’m not sure if this counts as ‘app misuse’, but we did use a photography technique in an unexpected way. I had my housemate Katy, who is a Tae Kwon Do first don (the first level of black belt) and friend Rachel*, who is a fourth don (almost instructor level) do various forms with glowing nunchucks that we ordered online. Rachel was able to critique Katy’s form from the photos alone, so we essentially invented a weird and laborious critique system.

This was my first time trying long exposure photography, so the photos are not in focus — it was difficult enough to get the shutter speed and aperture right. Katy has ordered more glowing nunchucks in different colors, so the next time I do this I’ll try to get the focus right. We also didn’t have a perfectly dark background for the first few photos, so we went to the abandoned quarry (hence the stripy pattern in some of them.)

If I had more time this week, I would’ve wanted to trace the results in Adobe Illustrator to make graphic ‘logos’. Though the photo is noisy, I especially love the script-like form of the image above.

*Yes, she is a member of our isolation pod.

A simple figure-8.

Throwing the nunchuck and catching it.

Author: Izzy

izzystephen.com