Congratulations my friend. You're the winner of my Creative Car Lighting Challenge. Great use of light painting here. Thank you to all who entered. I wish I could have chosen 5 runner ups as well because there were some outstanding photo's.
This photo was taken on a small road near a field north of Toronto, Canada in the evening around 10 pm with the full moon out.
Time
We shot in the evening between 9pm and 11pm since I needed to have pretty much darkness all around so we can light paint the cars properly. There's a parking lot with some lights down the road which can be seen on the left side of the photo but around us there was only a field and no light posts, only the light of the moon.
Lighting
I shot this using light painting technique, I had the drivers of the cars actually each light paint their own cars at the same time so it would be done relatively fast instead of me having to do both cars. We used just a normal flashlight and I showed them how to light paint the cars first and then they did it themselves and had a lot of fun in the process.
Equipment
I shot this with my Canon 5D mark 3 camera and using the 24-105mm F4 lens from Canon, of course I had the camera on a tripod with a remote so I can do a long exposure shot. I also shot some photos during the same night with a fish eye lens and I have one of those photos also posted on here in my gallery.
Inspiration
I saw different types of light painting photos online however it's usually just of people or people making signs and writing something in the air with the flashlight and I thought that light painting cars would be absolutely fantastic since you can decide what to show and what not to show and also most people wouldn't understand where the light is coming from. Considering this is an outdoor photo and not a studio it would not be easy to figure out that it's actually a light painting photo of the two cars using just flashlights.
Editing
I only changed the contrast and brightness on the photo as well as removed some electrical lines and posts that were in the background behind the cars since they didn't add anything to the photo and were actually a bit distracting. I don't usually over process my images so this is almost as it came out of the camera.
In my camera bag
It depends on what I'm shooting, if it's a street event or event photography I usually use my Canon 60D with the 24-105mm F4 lens or my Rokinon 8mm fish eye lens or my Canon 40mm f2.8 pancake lens. I also recently bought a Fuji X20 camera to bring with me every day for street photography only. The more important photo shoots I use my Canon 5D mark 3 camera with the lenses mentioned above, they're pretty much my go to lenses for almost any type of photo shoot.
Feedback
The best advice is to try and experiment, this was not the first photo we took, we shot for about half and hour or an hour about 10-15 different shots before we got to this one which I think is the best. You also have to be patient since it's a long exposure image sometimes 2 minutes or 3 minutes and then you will see the photo and if you missed lighting something you'll have to go back and start again from the beginning. Having said that it's a lot of fun to do especially if the weather is not too cold at night and try to find a place with not too many distractions in the background either. Last but not least try using different flashlights or colored LED lighting and experiment and have fun.