Light painting

Light painting is a photographic technique in which a light source is moved during a long exposure - to illuminate a subject piece by piece, or to shine into the camera and 'draw' - or the camera itself is moved past stationary lights. Traced in 1889 by Etienne-Jules Marey and Georges Demeny recording human motion, it was taken up by Man Ray in his 1935 'Space Writing' and made famous by the 1949 light drawings Pablo Picasso improvised for photographer Gjon Mili. Barbara Morgan drew with light around dancers, Peter Keetman swung a bulb on a pendulum, and from 1977 Dean Chamberlain dedicated his whole practice to it. A slow shutter, a steady support and torches, LEDs, steel wool or sparklers are the whole toolkit; digital cameras and LED brushes made it a global vernacular.

Defining characteristics

• Glowing trails and strokes of light suspended in darkness
• Hand-drawn calligraphy, doodles and lettering recorded in one continuous exposure
• Razor-sharp surroundings set against fluid luminous lines (camera locked on a tripod)
• Selective lighting: the subject painted piecemeal by a moving lamp
• Camera movement ('shutter drag') producing purely abstract light fields
• Superimposition and transparency from adding or removing lights mid-exposure

Key figures

• Etienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904) — With Georges Demeny made the first known light painting, tracing human motion in 1889
• Georges Demeny (1850-1917) — Co-author of the 1889 chronophotographic light tracings
• Man Ray (1890-1976) — 'Space Writing' (1935), the first art photograph drawn with light
• Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) — Improvised air drawings photographed by Gjon Mili in 1949
• Gjon Mili (1904-1984) — The Life photographer whose stroboscopic and light studies seeded the form

Example works

• Space Writing — Man Ray (1935)
• Picasso draws a Centaur — Pablo Picasso (photographed by Gjon Mili) (1949)
• Pure Energy and Neurotic Man — Barbara Morgan (1941)

Sources

• Light painting - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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