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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
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Education Field Instructional

The Beginner’s Guide on How to Do Your Own Firefly Lamp Portrait Photography

Chris Gampat
No Comments
05/15/2019
3 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Fairy Lights 1

Last Updated on 05/15/2019 by Mark Beckenbach

That firefly lamp portrait photography trend is pretty simple to do on the cheap!

The trend that has taken over Instagram and lots of cinema is firefly lamp portrait photography. Lots of folks don’t know how to do it themselves or simply just associate it with other photographers. But the truth is that it doesn’t need to be that way. You can put your own twist and spin on it using Christmas lights, which is very affordable and gives you a ton of options. The bottom line: it’s all about being in touch with your own feelings.

Trust us, this isn’t difficult; let’s take a look!

The DIY Option

If you hang out at bars often, you’ll know that liquor makers put some time and thought into the designs of their bottles. These bottles look really cool and are very interesting. One of the ways that I love going about this kind of lighting is by recycling those bottles after cleaning them, and then using my own DIY lights from Amazon. Essentially, the lights are made of copper wire with a switch that you put into the bottles. The trick here is trying to find a way to creatively hide the switch (which is fairly large). You can use a subject’s hands to do this creatively or perhaps glue it to a bottle cap of some sort.

When you’re done, you can use them as living room decorations.

Or, on Amazon: If You’re Not a Maker

Believe it or not, you generally don’t even need to DIY these unless you really wish to. There are tons of makers on Amazon who do it, and some of my favorites are these. They’re special in that they use a rechargeable battery that charges via solar light. When it detects a lack of sunlight, the lights inside will turn on automatically. They’re fantastic and built well enough for the type of photography that you’re doing.

Think Magical!

What makes a lot of these images work so well is the idea of the ethereal and magical in the scenes. Sometimes it means thinking like a kid while other photographers may want to embrace the sexy side of things. The two polarized sides of the spectrum can work very well.

So where do you get inspiration?

  • Fairy tale books
  • Old school mythology books
  • Comic books
  • Movies (Peter Pan)
  • Television shows (*cough* Stranger Things *cough*)

Another idea is to genuinely find the inspiration within yourself. Choose an emotion and figure out a way to manifest it in the shoot.

Don’t Be Afraid to Use Off Camera Flash (or other lights)

One of the reasons why Firefly Lamp Portrait Photography is so popular is because it lets photographers use off camera lighting with ease while their subject just moves it around. If you choose to be significantly less lazy (wink wink) then consider using an off-camera flash and even off-camera lighting in some way. On top of that, throw a gel on the flash and lock your white balance to get more consistent colors throughout the shoot.

My personal tip: go for neons.

Consider Alternative White Balances

My last quick tip: change your white balance setting. Generally speaking you should go for Daylight (5500K) or Tungsten (3200K) and just play with those. But fluorescent is also a nice option. Not only does this speed up your post-processing by giving you colors more or less set in stone (that will just need minor tweaks) but it will also add a different mood and feeling to your images.

amazon color diy fairy lights firefly flash ideas lamp lantern magical Photography portrait portraiture subject
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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