Would this work?

[Troy_Schwaller]

Hello,

I had an idea but I am not sure it would work.

I want to get a completely dark room, a strobe light, and set my camera on a tripod with a remote.

I want to rewire/rework the strobe to go MUCH slower speed. On/off for like 3 secs each.

Set my camera to have a 30 sec exposure.

And get my friend to do different poses while the light is on.

Would that result in an image of the same person in different, distinct poses without having to photoshop each image in?

Thanks

[IABoomer]

In short, yes.

Crazy self portrait

You might also try this using a flashlight to "paint" your friend in different positions. If you have an external flash, you could use the test mode to pop off a flash when you're ready for it.

[i speak in math]

Why do you need 3 seconds? (it wouldn't work anyway as the flash tube would get far too hot and burn up) A speedlight has plenty of power to capture a pose in a normal flash duration. Your main problem here is that everytime the flash goes off, it will record the background.

Lets say you set up the camera for 10 seconds and try doing 2 poses. You flash once while your friend is posed. The camera records what it sees, including the subject and background. He moves and you flash again. It records the subject and background again. The shutter times out and closes.

What you will see is two half invisible poses and a normal background. During the first flash, the camera recorded the background over where he will be in the second pose. And during the second flash, it recorded the the background over where he was in the first.

So, what you need to do is find a way of lighting only the subject and not the background. This involves heavy light control using snoots, grids or flags. Snoots direct the light into a small point of light you can aim where you choose. Grids are similar except you can attach them to large soft light sources to direct them. Flags are just things blocking the light from reaching an unintended area.

[Troy_Schwaller]

What would be the limitations in this type of photo?