painting with light

i came across today’s topic (like so many others) quite by chance. i like it that way! light painting and light bombing isn’t really new to me as i remember seeing a doucmentary of sorts in which the videographer had travelled through numerous european cities where people had been planting lights - magetized leds - on buses and sending them on their way. the resultant photographs were like trails in a cloudchamber as the vehicles bounced and lurched along, leaving behind multi-coloured light trails.

picasso famously light-painted as captured in an article in time magazine. here’s an image from that session . . .
last christmas i tried my hand at it with the blue christmas lights in the front of the house . . . yukihiro sato created some lovely black and white images that are almost like scenes from fairyland or from a magical meeting of fireflies. his work somehow softens and elevates the scens he has photographed that would otherwise be unremarkable.
so what is light painting? essentially it involves a light source and a slow shutter speed. either the light source or the camera can be moved - like a paintbrush - to create whatever shapes or lines or marks are desired.

”lightmark” is the creative lovechild of two people - cenci goepel and jens warnecke. here are two stunning examples of their work . . .
to learn more about these two talented people, an excellent and informative interview can be read here at yorkrules.

uk photographer sola runs a site called “lightbombing”. if you visit his site, you will see a very different take on light painting particularly in his “solid trace” series of images which looks at lightpainting in stark environments. the effect of his work is to create a dynamic yet softening effect as scarves of light dance inside metallic structures or in the middle of the air on urban streets.

over on flickr, ”reciprocity” has assembled some truly stunning light painting experiments that you simply have to see.

”burnblue” has a gorgeous set of images created on a beach at dusk and into sunset.

if you’re intrigued and want to learn more about how to create your own lightpaintings then this article is definitely for you. in it, the author shows some of his work and then unpacks the steps and technique and equipment required to replicate his experience. a similar sort of “how-to-do-it” article can be read here.