Altered Reality by Janne Parviainen

Light painting photography is an art form in which photos are manipulated manually using different kind of light sources during long exposure times. The idea of the art form is not to use any post production to the photo at all, all photos should be straight from the camera. While the camera is exposing the area of the photo can be used as a canvas by moving different lights in it, as if drawing or painting to it. The exposure times used in light painting vary from a few seconds to hours, depending on the desired effect. The actual light painting can be done with colored strobes, flash lights, light toys or tools especially engineered for light painting. “What interests me most in light painting is the ability to draw in three dimensional space and the possibility to alter the reality without post processing programs. I like to use in my photos different kind of figures such as skeletons and ghostly light creatures. By using these figures I can add more humane stories into my photos and alter the cultural learned feelings they cause in the viewer of the photo. I especially like to use the skeleton figure because of it’s strong pre-learned emotional concept and place it in totally different situations and emotional stages than in which it’s usually seen in popular culture. ” Janne Parviainen

Our True Selves by Patrick Rochon

To me, light painting is an expression of our true selves. Through science, we now know that our bodies emit light. So in a way, we’ve been and are constantly light painting, leaving a trace of light behind. Patrick Rochon

Light painting is a photographic technique in which exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source or by moving the camera. The term light painting also encompasses images lit from outside the frame with hand-held light sources. Light Painting Photography can be traced back to the year 1914 when Frank Gilbreth, along with his wife Lillian Moller Gilbreth, used small lights and the open shutter of a camera to track the motion of manufacturing and clerical workers. Man Ray, in his 1935 series “Space Writing,” was the first known art photographer to use the technique and Barbara Morgan began making light paintings in 1940. (wikipedia)

Graphite DJ by Yanni Floros

I’ve always been interested in technology, especially the design of things and the way they’re put together. It goes deeper than that, when I view humanity as a whole I have to ask ‘what is it about us that wants to make all this?’ That question affords me the ability to examine not only the ‘why’ but also the final product. From our humble beginnings we’ve demonstrated an amazing ability for progress, we’ve wanted ‘better’ and ‘more’, technology is only a part of it, but for me and the society we live in today it’s the part accessible and relatable for everyone. As we hurtle towards an unknown and uncertain future, technology and the way we use it will become increasingly more important. It has already become so integrated into our lives that I doubt many of us could live without it. As we build more and invent more, are we helping our humanity or are we robbing ourselves of it?

Yanni Floros is an Adelaide based artist that trained at the National Art School in Sydney graduating as a sculpture major. Since then he has shown his work around Australia in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide and has been a finalist in art prizes such as the Dobell Drawing Prize, the Lethbridge 10000 and the Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing. His work extends across the disciplines of painting, sculpture and drawing and focuses on the pursuits of man and how those pursuits impact our development. He is currently working towards a solo show in the New Year.

Visions of a Blind Photographer

Sometimes when she’s taking pictures, Sonia Soberats forgets she cannot see. Until 1986, Ms. Soberats was like many single immigrant mothers — living in Queens, working two jobs and watching her two children grow into flourishing adults. Life began to crumble, though, when ovarian cancer was diagnosed for her only daughter. Two years later, the family received more bad news: her only son had Hodgkin’s disease. He died in 1991, and three years later, so did Ms. Soberats’s daughter. In between those deaths, Ms. Soberats, who had a history of glaucoma, lost her eyesight. First the right eye went dark, then about six months later, the left.

“That biblical story about the seven good years and the seven bad years? That happened to me,” Ms. Soberats, 77, said in an interview at her home in Jackson Heights.  “I think their sickness helped me cope with my blindness. Because I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about them. How much they were suffering, how much they were going through.”

It is this mix of pain and perseverance that Ms. Soberats weaves throughout her photographs. Her subjects are often friends or family, and she frequently captures or recreates life-altering events: pregnancies, marriages, death.

Light Drawings in the 1970s

While artist Eric Staller’s light drawings are beautiful in and of themselves, take into account that they were created in New York back in the 1970s using just a Nikon 35mm film camera, 4th of July sparklers and Christmas lights and you can’t help but be blown away. By day, Staller would walk around New York, studying the locations he felt would “articulate the particular choreography or architecture of light” that he wanted to express. At night, he would carefully position his camera on a tripod and, with the lens open for several minutes, he would purposefully move about urban spaces; outlining cars, streets and stairways and even forming magical-looking tunnels brought to life through his imagination. (via My Modern Met)

Eric Staller’s website.

Luminescence by Michael Taylor

Great light painting series by artist Michael Taylor.

Visit Michael Taylor website.

Topographical Light Paintings

Helsinki, Finland-based photographer Janne Parviainen has been light painting since 2008, and recently created series of experimental photos showing a technique he calls Light Topography. Using a single LED light for each image, he carefully traces over every surface in the scene while the camera’s shutter is open. Fully tracing a room can take as long as half an hour. The resulting light outlines provide a trippy look at what each space contains.

Visit Janne Parviainen Flickr page.

La luce sul corpo – Bela Borsodi

Bela Borsodi è un Viennese trasferitosi a New York e nel 1999 dove lavora come fotografo di still-life, ha collaborato con varie importanti riviste. Bela ci racconta la forma e il cromatismo (mono) con questa curiosa serie di provocanti light painting su delle forme femminili, che a tutti gli effetti mostrano più di una semplice fotografia di nudo, la tecnica non è nuova ma, qui, è sicuramente ben applicata.

Visita il sito di Bela Borsodi.

L’occhio galattico

E’ difficile credere che queste belle immagini di occhi, realizzate da Marc Quinn possano essere dipinti ad olio. Il lavoro di Quinn “medita sui nostri tentativi di capire o di superare la caducità della vita umana attraverso la conoscenza scientifica e l’espressione artistica”. Il titolo della serie “We Share Our Chemistry with the Stars”, ricorda più lo spazio e le galassie che non l’occhio umano e suggerisce l’idea che i nostri occhi possano essere delle finestre sull’universo. I dipinti sono così naturali che a prima vista sembrano fotografie.

Visita il sito di Marc Quinn.

L.E.D.

Light Emitting Diode. Molti artisti oggi sfruttano la tecnologia LED, sempre meno costosa.
I Light painters sono i primi ad adottare i LED, hanno aperto le nostre menti al potenziale illimitato e magico che hanno da offrire in ambito creativo. E ora stiamo vedendo un uso ancora più elaborato dei LED, in quanto vengono applicate a soggetti diversi e a svariate forme d’arte.

Qui di seguito, invece, un documentario sui Light Painter, molto interessante: