Light painting is a tricky photographic technique. You may have seen images that use light painting to write someone’s name in the dark or illuminate a campsite, but it has many uses and can come in handy in tough situations, such as on an archaeological dig. On a recent assignment to the mysterious City of the Jaguar in Honduras mysterious City of the Jaguar in Honduras, National Geographic photographer Dave Yoder used light painting to photograph precious artifacts from an untouched ruin.

I don’t have a lot of experience with light painting, so naturally I wanted to get the what, how, and why of using this technique on assignment, and Yoder generously shared