Wildflower Nights

© Mark M. Hancock

This is an illustration to accompany a special section for the 1997 annual Wildflower! Music and Arts Festival. It was the first year to feature Wildflower! Nights, which is an evening-only concert series held the weekend before the main festival.

This image was made by light painting the foreground subjects with a flashlight and red, blue and green gels to make a cumulative white light. I probably threw some fill flash in as well to make sure the base exposure was right.

I made the image about 4 a.m. to make sure there was no strange traffic light patterns in the background. However, I think it would be cool to find a traffic medium where red tail lights make a curve around the instruments and give them the same effect.

The blue swirls in the background are actually me walking around with a blue gel on the flashlight pointed back at the camera. I wanted it to give the impression of music coming out of the instruments.

Although it didn't look quite as I wished (I should have drawn some music notes), it was OK. It was selected by the Dallas Press Club as a Katie Award finalist for Illustration.