Glow in the Dark Paint: Part 1 - Path of Glowing Stones

There are a LOT of pins about adding glow in the dark paint to outside features.  Today's post addresses the infamous Glow in the Dark Path.

Glow in the dark path?

Line a pathway with rocks painted in glow in the dark paint. During the day they “charge” in the sun and in the evening they reflect the stored light. Rust-Oleum Glow in the Dark Brush-on Paint.

or

glow stones…..glows at night after soaking up the sun all day omg

It's hard to know where to start with this one.  So many people have pinned it, seeming to believe that these really are stones that have been painted with glow in the dark paint or that maybe these are special glowing stones that are available for purchase.  But you just need to look at this picture to recognize that this effect is not attributable to glow in the dark paint, nor are the rocks glowing from within.  

Look at how the light is focused on each stone.  It's brightest in the center and fades out toward the edges, which if the rocks were glowing from within would make sense.  But then there are the pebbles around each stone, which are showing some spillover illumination.  If that's from the stones, why isn't it consistent around each stone?  And why are those pebbles sometimes brighter than the edges of the stones that they are bordering?

Then, check out the gate and urns at the end of the path.  If these stones are glowing, why is that same "glow" coming off of the gate?  Surely no one believes that the glowing stones are powerful enough to light up that gate.  

And even without that sort of analysis, the color is a dead giveaway.  Glow in the dark paint does not give off this color.  Over at Observations, they did a comparison between the glow in the dark paint from Krylon and Rust-Oleum.  They even delved into the ingredients that cause the glow in the dark effect (Strontium Aluminate and Zinc Sulfide).  Both of those paints (which each use Zinc Sulfide) glow green as they release the energy stored from being exposed to light.  But whether you are using Strontium Aluminate or Zinc Sulfide, it looks like you cannot achieve the warmth in the pinned picture through glow in the dark paints.

It's probably worth mentioning that even if you did want to paint your stones so that they would glow a spooky green for about two hours after sundown, for at least the Rust-Oleum paint, the directions say it's for interior use only.

So how was the picture in the pin achieved?  It's a technique the photographer used called "Painting With Light."  He walked along the path and used a handheld light to "paint" each of the stones, then the fence, then the urns and gate, and finally walked back to the camera to close the shutter.  Because of the way the settings were done, he never appears in the picture - he was moving too quickly to be captured.

The good news for people who do want a glowing pathway is that there are companies that sell glowing stones.  And interestingly enough, one of the pins that has a picture of that glowing path above has the URL to Ambient Glow Technology.  If you go to their Gallery page you can see a set of stepping stones that really do glow in the dark, and per the claim on that page, they will last all night.  Or there is GLOW Stones USA, which has a lovely picture of a driveway incorporating their glow in the dark stones.