Light Graffiti Artists and Photographers

July 15, 2008 12:05 PM

10 Amazing Light Graffiti Artists and Photographers: From Light Writing to Extreme Exposures. [Possibly NSFW]
posted by homunculus (15 comments total)

Stunning. Thank you.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 12:21 PM on July 15, 2008

These are great. I love how in the hitchiker photo the beam lights up the tarmac.
posted by fire&wings at 12:29 PM on July 15, 2008

I have experimented with this a bit myself, and it's a blast. I think I like the really abstract ones best.
posted by chuckdarwin at 12:36 PM on July 15, 2008

I've seen this style appropriated lately in so many different TV commercials, but never knew the term for it, or that it went back so far. Good to see these examples--thanks for illuminating! **dodging thrown cellphones**
posted by not_on_display at 12:37 PM on July 15, 2008

This kind of stuff looks good in 3D, if you have a stereo camera.
posted by StickyCarpet at 12:42 PM on July 15, 2008

Very cool - I'm actually taking a night photography workshop right now, so this is right up my alley!
posted by o0dano0o at 1:05 PM on July 15, 2008

StickyCarpet: This kind of stuff looks good in 3D, if you have a stereo camera.

Whoa. I thought this link was amazing, but if you have stereoscopic examples of the same kind of work, you would probably blow my mind clear out through my forehead.
posted by hincandenza at 1:37 PM on July 15, 2008

Am I mistaken, or was it Gjon Mili who got this ball rolling?

Oh, and - hincandenza: would video do the trick (various large QT files)?
Radiohead - Like Spinning Plates (test)
Pikapika projects
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Fortune Faded
The Willowz - Jubilee
posted by progosk at 2:58 PM on July 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wow, that's stunning.
posted by captaindistracto at 3:14 PM on July 15, 2008

what's more:
Sprint - Dreams and Charts
Cornelius - Beep It
plus some prior art:
INXS - New Sensation
Ryuichi Sakamoto & Iggy Pop - Risky

(plus a Pikapika mov, for all flash-haters.)
posted by progosk at 3:20 PM on July 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

Being a fan of both photography and LED/ flashlights, I've experimented quite a bit with this art style and it is incredibly difficult to do well. You have to have a really good spatial awareness to draw into a medium that immediately swallows the line and then be able to use that to build into an image.

These are an example of people who, unlike me, are good at this kind of thing.

Most of my stuff had a distinctly Happy Noodle Boy vibe to it.
posted by quin at 3:27 PM on July 15, 2008

So, I'm a little slow, sorry. I take it that what the linked page shows is essentially time-lapse photographs in which someone, or something has moved a light source around a stationary scene to create the image? We used to do this with sparklers, which can create nifty retinal images if you move them around fast enough. IOW, this is not something that's visible to the observer the way projection bombing is done. Is that right?
posted by beagle at 3:57 PM on July 15, 2008

My favorite artist in this tradition is Tokihiro Sato.
posted by xo at 4:42 PM on July 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

Beagle: that's basically right, although the term is long-exposure, not time-lapse. You lock the shutter open and move a light around, and all of that light gets added to a single photo. Wikipedia has the basics.
posted by echo target at 6:39 PM on July 15, 2008

20 Most Incredible Light Phenomena [pics]
posted by homunculus at 2:21 PM on July 26, 2008