Light painting

Light painting, painting with light, light drawing, or light art performance photography are terms that describe photographic techniques of moving a light source while taking a long exposure photograph, either to illuminate a subject or space, or to shine light at the camera to 'draw', or by moving the camera itself during exposure of light sources. Practiced since the 1880s, the technique is used for both scientific and artistic purposes, as well as in commercial photography. Light painting, painting with light, light drawing, or light art performance photography are terms that describe photographic techniques of moving a light source while taking a long exposure photograph, either to illuminate a subject or space, or to shine light at the camera to 'draw', or by moving the camera itself during exposure of light sources. Practiced since the 1880s, the technique is used for both scientific and artistic purposes, as well as in commercial photography. Light painting also refers to a technique of image creation using light directly, such as with LEDs on a projective surface using the approach that a painter approaches a canvas. A pioneer in this field is the Bushwick Lightbox project in New York City. Light painting (also called light drawing) dates back to 1889 when Étienne-Jules Marey and Georges Demeny traced human motion in the first known light painting Pathological Walk From in Front. The technique was used in Frank Gilbreth's work with his wife Lillian Moller Gilbreth in 1914 when the pair 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. He made a self-portrait with a time exposure and while the shutter was open, with a penlight he inscribed his name in cursive script in the space between him and the camera, overwriting the letters with more cryptic marks. Historian of photography Ellen Carey (*1952) describes her discovery of the artist's signature in this image while examining it in 2009. Photographer Barbara Morgan began making light paintings in 1935-1941. Her 1941 photomontage Pure Energy and Neurotic Man incorporates light drawing and realises her stated aim; 'that if I should ever seriously photograph, it would be...the flux of things. I wanted then, and still do, to express the ‘thing’ as part of total flow.' In making innovative photographs of dancers, including Martha Graham and Erick Hawkins she would have them move while holding lights. In 1949 Pablo Picasso was visited by Gjon Mili, a photographer and lighting innovator, who introduced Picasso to his photographs of ice skaters with lights attached to their skates. Immediately Picasso started making images in the air with a small flashlight in a dark room. This series of photos became known as Picasso's 'light drawings.' Of these photos, the most celebrated and famous is known as Picasso draws a Centaur. Peter Keetman (1916–2005), who studied photography in Munich from 1935 to 1937, was the 1949 co-founder of FotoForm (together with Otto Steinert, Toni Schneiders et al.), a group with great impact on the new photography in the 50s and 60s in Germany and abroad. He produced a series Schwingungsfigur (oscillating figures) of complex linear meshes, often with moiré effects, using a point-source light on a pendulum. During the 1970s and '80s Eric Staller used this technology for numerous photo projects that were called 'Light Drawings'. Light paintings up to 1976 are classified as light drawings.