Prince George, B.C. – A 30-year old Prince George man is Instagram’s Global Orb Champion.

Kris Foot won the award on May 17^th after submitting a photo he took outside an abandoned church in Salmon Valley.

He’s something of a quick study noting the skill derives from light painting.

“I guess about a year ago now I saw some light painting on the internet where people were spinning steel wool and I eventually started researching more into light painting and started experimenting more with different tools and with a light orb.”

And the more he learned, the better he got which prompted him to enter the contest.

“They had hundreds of entries and they narrowed it down to 16 people – four from Canada, four from the United States, four from the U.K. and four from Australia.”

So how exactly does it work?

“It’s just long exposure photography light painting. So you can either set your camera to a 30 second exposure or you can set it to bulb mode and then get an exposure lock, like a shutter lock,” says Foot.

“So I open my shutter up for 15 minutes and in that time I’m painting orbs and painting different shapes and colouring light on the ground to make it look like fire or ice or water or whatever I’m painting I guess you could say.”

His winning shot – of four orbs before an abandoned church in salmon valley – was the result of much consideration.

“I spent two weeks thinking about where to go. I considered Hixon Falls and Jasper but to win I knew it had to be good.”

So what next for the man who earns his regular pay check as a child and youth support worker? A future career in light photography perhaps?

“I hope so. I think eventually if I could get big enough and a large enough name maybe I could travel the world and teach workshops and hopefully get sponsored and stuff like that but I’m not there yet but that’s obviously the dream.”