A single photograph including 26 exposures. The camera is mounted on a gimbal, then swung 360 degrees through the vertical axis. Individual exposures are achieved by using the camera's lens cap (off to let in light, then back on so there's no blur when you rotate the camera).
To measure angles, a mobile phone is mounted on the camera's hot shoe with a protractor app to estimate angles for each exposure.
A shout out to Robert D'Angelo, a talented light painter and Jason Page, owner of Light Painting Brushes who've been sharing tips and techniques on this type of photography.
The composition's a bit of fun while I figure out what I'm doing. I'd light painted the resin cow skull before using fibre optic brushes, but for the rotation I wanted to use a constant light source (fibre optics are hit and miss), so I switched to ultra violet lighting with the skull paiinted with UV reactive paints to make colours *pop* and give a sense of fire coming from inside the skull. The horns were also painted as otherwise, being black, they'd get lost in the black background.
The light ring is made using a Magilight lit acrylic paddle, with a home made fire stencil taped to the front, and glitter paper to the back.
Mounting the subjects to a lighting tripod was a challenge (a cow!). My first attempt resulted in the cow skull ending up on the floor with a broken horn. One session of super glue later to fix the horn, and blue tac replaced with sugru (taking 4 days to cure) and the skull was mounted. The Magilight acrylic light paddle was mounted using magic arms and clamps.
Camera settings: Bulb Mode. F8. ISO 100.