Re-editing my first ever tube light-painting picture (including the before and after)
Ten Years Later: Re-editing the Photo That Started It All
It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since we first picked up that four-foot plastic tube and brought it to the beach, unknowingly starting a creative journey that would shape our lives. This week, to mark our 10-year tube light-painting anniversary, we decided to go back to the very beginning. Not just in memory, but by reopening the original RAW file from that first session.
The main thing that struck me while revisiting this image is just how much technology has evolved, both for capturing and editing. This photo is far from being among my favorites, but it’s special because it was our first. I still bite my fingers for not filming anything during that initial tube light-painting session, but it is what it is. When we live through moments, we can’t always know which ones will become pivotal. And it’s okay not to have them all recorded.
What started as a spontaneous experiment turned into a lifestyle filled with beauty, challenges, and a lot of trial and error. In this new video, we reflect on that first night and revisit a few early sessions that helped shape our visual language.
From ghost legs to double faces, awkward compositions to lucky highlights, these early moments weren’t perfect, but they’re what made everything that followed possible.
I left out something from the video that I’m really not proud of. The original post-processing was a mess. I don’t know what I was thinking - it’s awful. I removed the footprints and my legs using 0 degree motion blur. I applied the same technique to the noisy clouds, which caused major detail loss. I also used the Nik Collection, which I relied on way too much back in 2015. All of these treatments degraded the image. What I’ve learned over the years: preserve as much of the original detail as possible. The latest Photoshop tools like Remove and Generative Fill help a lot with that.
Video timestamps:
00:00 - Intro: Celebrating 10 years of tube light-painting
00:34 - Re-editing our first ever tube light-painting image
00:58 - Challenges of long exposures and why the shot was risky
01:22 - Improvements in post-processing tools
02:10 - Removing ghost legs and footprints
02:35 - Creating vertical versions for mobile
03:32 - The role of better gear (monitor, eyes, etc.)
03:14 - Was it really our first tube light-painting image?
03:52 - Our DIY rolled tube before finding the plastic guard
04:08 - Rediscovering that first session on the beach
05:02 - Why that first photo isn’t a favorite
05:46 - The real turning point: our third session at Mont-Tremblant
06:30 - The magic of luck and cloudy skies
07:36 - Studio experiment with a machine-made light-painting shape
08:25 - Why we still want to paint every frame by hand
08:48 - Regrets about not filming our first session
In case you missed it, this was our 10-years aniversary celebration video:
See you soon 💕