We shot some frames earlier that evening of the bike on the road, then headed to the studio, and setup some constant lights on either side, two Alien Bees AB800 strobes with 20º grids, and a 22" beauty dish on an Alien Bees AB400 at the front to do some long exposure zooming shots. With a studio backdrop, and the camera on a tripod and the bike on a stationary stand, he started to ride, and I captured several frames with lots of movement of him riding, and from the lens zooming while the shutter was open. (Image A - 1 sec f/18 @ ISO 320). The left to right movement of his head, together with the shape of his helmet painted an amazing pattern in the finished images.


After this, we came to the finale. We adhered several tiny LED lights to his body, and the bike frame The Canon 5DMKIII was setup on a 60" video slider, parallel to the bike, the house lights were shut-off, a strip light was placed facing the front of the bike, and another strobe was used on a boom above to light the background.


After a few test shots using a cable release, a shutter speed of 6 sec, and the speed of camera travel along the slider were determined.

A few frames later, I released the shutter, moved the camera down the slider, popped the trigger for the strobes at the end of the slider, and the image was made (Image B).

Many who see the image first think "Photoshop", but this method allowed me to capture the motion, colours, and sinusoidal light-painting all at once.