Painting with Light
Enhancing natural landscapes with "super"-natural light
This article is not about "painter of light" Thomas Kinkade, but rather
less-established and extremely talented photographers, who use dynamic
electric light patterns to enhance the nature's given landscapes, or our
bleak industrial environments. In every case something luminous and
strangely mesmerizing is brought "to light", transforming the photograph
into an entirely different experience, and making our hearts beat faster.
It all started with Eric Staller
Eric Staller is a sculptor more known
for the permanent artwork in public places, but also for his experimentation
with light. His light drawings and sculptures date as far back as the late
70s (definitely in-line with the disco-era sensibilities). He was perhaps
the first photographer to paint light into live urban environment:
Some of these New York light-scapes still look like perfect examples of the
technique. Simply glorious, after all these years.
No Lens, Only Intricate Light
Alan Jaras (aka
"Reciprocity") captures surreal refraction patterns of light, passing
through molded plastic. Amazingly, these photos are made the "natural way",
without the use of a camera lens, or retouching by Photoshop. His flickr
photostream is one of the most interesting and adventurous on the web.
"Spicules of Light" by
Alan Jaras
Light Among the Ruins
Abandoned & ghastly places achieve a new license to life with these urban
light explorations. The nameless artists responsible for these "graffitis of
light" perhaps live somewhere nearby and make it their creative statement to
turn ugly venues into canvases of "cleansing" light.
Some other examples of "painting with light":
(image credit: Sashnone)
(image credit: Kurbaga)
(original unknown)
Mystery and Melancholy of a Street
One word: "heavenly". This is how you can describe the apparitions created
by group LICHTFAKTOR. We
already wrote about their previous
works, but it seems that angels of creativity continue to bestow their
visitations upon this enlightened urban clan. They go into the night and
return with transcendental glowing creations... like these:
(image credit: LICHTFAKTOR)
Spiritual Glow
Dean Chamberlain takes the
inherent glow that all mysterious worship places evoke in our heart, and
brings it to the screen - his temple & palace interiors are uplifting and
mystifying at the same time:
Do you like seaside? Now you do.
It's impossible not to fall in love with the sea and the coast when seeing
photography of Toby Keller, aka
BurnBlue. His light painting technique is often subtle, and it's hard to
tell where the natural light ends and the "super"-natural light begins.
Waves provide the long-exposure soft glow, and deep blue ghost-like
apparitions seem to lure us, mere mortals, into their marvelous portals, and
into an infinite light. (you have to excuse my purple prose, these photos
are simply too magical).
And yet, no matter how skillful you are as a painter, natural light is still
the winner. Here is very evocative shot of moonlight at sea:
and a riot of colors during sunset:
