Photographing Body Art And Face Painting

The Painted Man

The images here have been captured at the Body Art Carnivale at Eumundi, Queensland, Australia.

A carnival such as this is a great opportunity to capture images of body art and face painting. The images here were captured through from the painting preparation process to the final display.

For these images a Nikon D700 camera was used together with a 105mm f/2.8  Micro lens and a 200mm f/4.0 Micro lens. Lenses in the range 85-200mm are very suitable for this type of photography.

A low aperture lens of at least f/2.8 is of great advantage for this photography, as it will enable you to acheive a nice depth of field to blur out the background as required, also a low aperture lens will allow creative selective focus. A blurred out background will bring the viewers attention to the main subject.

A fill in flash with a diffuser can also be useful for suplementary lighting to give more even lighting.

The image above was captured after dark, using camera settings as follows:

  • ISO of 200
  • Built in camera flash
  • Shuttur speed 1/60 second
  • Aperture f/3.5

Also to capture moving subjects after dark it is advantageous to have a lens with an aperture capable of going down to f/1.4 when shooting in low light.

The image of the Crouching Man below was also photographed with flash and the remaining images with natural daylight.

The Mad Hatter
The Cat
Painted Man Crouching
Smiling Art