Light painting is a photographic technique where the light in a scene is added by hand, usually with nothing more than a simple flashlight. It's one of my favorite techniques for night photography. I often say that just about any subject can be made to look pretty cool at night with a little creative lighting.
I shoot these images as a series. First I take a few shots exposed for the sky. Then I switch to longer exposures, 10 to 15 seconds each, while I move around the scene lighting different areas with the flashlight. That gives me complete control over the lighting and lets me create distinct highlights and shadows.
I usually have a photography partner with me, and for light painting we split the work: one of us lights the scene while the other fires the shutter. We shoot as many frames as it takes to get the entire scene lit, and then I blend them all together with the sky image in post-processing.
We came across this old abandoned brick building near Hearne, Texas. It didn't line up for a Milky Way or star trail shot, but the building had too much character to pass up. It was pitch dark outside, so every bit of light you see on the building came from one small flashlight.
The building sits right beside a rural highway, and nothing ruins a light-painted shot faster than approaching headlights, so much of the night was spent timing our shots between passing cars. I tried to research the building afterward, but other than learning that it served as a gas station back in the 1950s, I couldn't find much. I do know it has seen better days. When we looked inside, the second floor had collapsed onto the first.