It's not often you find a location which is dark enough in daylight to practice the dark art of lightpainting where complete darkness is necessary.  But today @neilru75 and I made the effort to visit this abandoned WW2 air raid shelter to check it out.

I'd seen a YouTuber visit this place and whilst he wasn't exactly giving the location away as is the usual with the unofficial urbexer's code but it wasn't difficult to figure it out for myself.  Once I worked out the route in on Google maps, it was real easy.  

We parked up and walked approx. 500 yards from the car with unusually no hills to climb!  The best lightpainting locations always seem to involve some arduous climb or dangerous walk over slippy rocks!  This time we got lucky.

***Daylight Lightpainting Pan and Tilt***

The main air raid shelter is about 60 mtrs long split in to a rectangular zig zag arrangement with sections each about 6 mtrs in length.  I presume this zig zag arrangement was intended to protect the occupants from being hit by a blast if one part of the shelter was hit from the skies.

For this shot, I used my "pan and tilt" method.  Tilt the camera and fire a flash to light up the background.  Then ask the subject to turn on a flashing torch and I simultaneously pan the camera leaving a trail of light in the frame.

I wished I'd taken a fisheye lens for this one but hey ho....

![Ilkeston-Air-Raid-LP1-rfs.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/fastchrisuk/23wqAVEbjJ3ZgKHG8rgPg5KkH2aRVEYG1GSKSTBnAUcvZpETSCy6RbqpAFMWDvy1aGRc4.jpg)

One of those, which one do I prefer moments, so I've posted both so you can decide!

![Ilkeston-Air-Raid-LP2.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/fastchrisuk/23wWR2WpXdDrDsm3Ao1oYM6DbNj3uvXb51fBQHrosDf5EYQRY3uGacKyVc1TaXhxMdDsY.jpg)

***Urbex with a camera phone***

Before we started lightpainting, we had a little explore around the air raid shelter.  This is lit by my head torch:

![Photo 02-07-2022, 13 02 30.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/fastchrisuk/EogLs3qkYYiybUEgWJvxEDkSVvZY14oeLrYrunGS6rqp4y9DzvhVTQEnHp1tRQFzmaG.jpg)

Real easy to get in....

![Photo 02-07-2022, 13 04 20.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/fastchrisuk/23uQk8wdDmBJbFYydWZ2uxrEa8Z2DvToHaCjo27BVJF9zVrPTbYdZfueVvDUBpahpP7QC.jpg)

![Photo 02-07-2022, 13 04 50.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/fastchrisuk/23xVCnVRMULQP8WQZyJgtyUqrUfv52x7g23BTanCiDafxsDRf14gZcrfsMKCBDmCUckmj.jpg)

Shooting through holes in the roof....

![Photo 02-07-2022, 13 08 01.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/fastchrisuk/23tv8FJH4gvCXnPG5APTjeLGVekTY9y9agxNrjLLafvMLAq5gFsZ472UxoRFcKtmz7PoY.jpg)

This is the hole....  I can use this on a future lightpainting session here.

![Photo 02-07-2022, 13 07 15.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/fastchrisuk/EokbdaHQReX1LJ4LGzh2ZC4FZLyrJmjU6be4NQPq7RuqmuwUwHo8YqLiVNwHg4TW9L3.jpg)

***Zig Zag***

I didn't get many lightpainting shots on our visit but this just about passed muster:

![Ilkeston-Air-Raid-LP3.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/fastchrisuk/23xp465yAtx3MYLQafGYbRvsrU6W2ZBNofrZJddZNgdfcPaQLicU5En8eFnHcSAFXof2J.jpg)

I shall be return here for sure!!

***About me:***
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.

<left>***Social Media***
**https://www.facebook.com/fastchrisuk**
**https://www.flickr.com/photos/fastchris/**

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<center>**WHAT IS LIGHTPAINTING?**</center>
Lightpainting is a photographic technique in which exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source while taking a long exposure photograph, either to illuminate a subject or to shine a point of light directly at the camera, or by moving the camera itself during exposure. Nothing is added or removed in post processing.

<center>**Single exposure Light Art Photography - no layers - no tricks - no photoshop**</center>

![Divider 5.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/lightpaintershub/23xVEcaSEcACVXNajKEE1o7WZT8waYwyX6Frn2zscPzosaSbEdJNBkXsmkramYTrnHH9q.png)<br>If you would like to see more lightpainting please give the [Lightpainters United](https://peakd.com/c/hive-108913/created) Community a follow and you will be introduced into the illuminating world of light painting!</center>

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<br>If you want to see more examples of lightpainting, feel free to check out these guys:

[Mafu Fuma](https://peakd.com/@mafufuma) | [Oddballgraphics](https://peakd.com/@oddballgraphics) | [FadetoBlack](https://peakd.com/@fadetoblack) | [DAWN](https://peakd.com/@dawnoner) | [Mart Barras](https://peakd.com/@martbarras) | [Stefan Stepke](https://peakd.com/@stepko) | [Nikolay Trebukhin](https://peakd.com/@yo-hoho) | [Lee Todd](https://peakd.com/@leetodd) | [Stabeu Light](https://peakd.com/@lightstabeu) | [Maxime Pateau](https://peakd.com/@maximepateau) | [Stephen Sampson](https://peakd.com/@sam1965uk) | [lightandlense](https://peakd.com/@lightandlense) | [Neil Rushby](https://peakd.com/@neilru75) | [L.A.C.E.](https://peakd.com/@lacelight)

<center>WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET IN CONTACT WITH US?<br>[Join us at Discord](https://discord.gg/W5FXNZj)
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