The Chiaroscuro and Rembrandt Lighting

In order to achieve the beautiful contrast between light and dark, known as chiaroscuro there is a method employed by photographers – Rembrandt Lighting. Here, with some beautiful examples, is how it is done. Image Credit Flickr User Mai En Hoa

Image Credit Flickr User 85mm.ch

Alaskan Summer

If you think that summer never lasts for long, spare a thought for your average Alaskan.  At around four weeks in length, summer in Alaska takes a long time to arrive and then is gone before you barely get used to it. However, with around twenty three hours of daylight, plant life here at the edge of the Arctic bursts in to life. There is a side to Alaska that does not necessarily always have to involve the white stuff.

Image Credit Flickr User gillfoto

A landscape of Fireweed in the shadow of Mount McGinnis. Although Alaska is home to lots of ice and snow, summer warms some of it up quite nicely. The state's second city, Anchorage, is protected by the Alaskan Range and the Chugach Mountains.  Add to that the warming currents of the Pacific Ocean with low humidity and the summer temperature can rise in to the 70s.

Light Pillar – Nature’s Beautiful Special Effect

Light pillars scrape the night sky over Alaska.  It may look as if an alien invasion force is beaming down to overrun our little planet but, in fact, this is a purely natural phenomenon.  Light and water is all that is needed to produce this remarkable special effect.

Image Credit Flickr User Chuckumentary

Voyage: Interactive Light Installation by Aether & Hemera

London’s Canary Wharf has become home to a gorgeous fleet of three hundred boats which can be controlled by the mobile phones of onlookers. They may look like origami boats but they are not made from paper. Each boat is lit via a wireless network which people can join from their phone and then change the color of the lights.

Image Credit Flickr User ChodHound

Luna

Luna is something of a love story with a difference.  A caterpillar is stuck inside a street light but finds that he has company in the shape of a beautiful lady moth.  Yet he is trapped and in his current form it is impossible to escape his street lamp prison.  Yet metamorphosis gets under way soon enough and that means only one thing... or does it?

This wonderful animated short from Rainmaker Entertainment shows that while love may conquer everything it doesn’t necessarily last forever!  Rainmaker looks like an exciting studio with which to be involved – go take a look at their website to find out more about what they do and how they do it!

Starwars V Startrek

Light writing is an up-and-coming form of stop motion animation in which still images captured using the technique known as light painting or light drawing are sequenced and so generate an optical illusion of movement for the observer. Pablo Picasso used this technique almost a century ago but it has hit our contemporary consciousness just recently, kicking off with an advertising campaign by an American telecommunications company four years ago.

This particular piece of light writing was created by German artist Lichtfaktor.  I think it should be renamed however: with the use of the telephone boxes in the video, surely the piece should be called Starwars V Startrek V Doctorwho!

The Light Fossils of Darius Twin

As light painting increases in popularity, artists have been creating more and more sophisticated images using the technique. At the forefront of this movement is Los Angeles based graphic artist Darius Twin. His latest project, the creation of dinosaur fossils in light, is quite something to behold. You can see even more at his website too!

The technique involves exposures being made at night (or in a dark room) by moving a hand-held flashlight of the type that can be bought at any store.  So far, so inexpensive but you will also need a camera with the ability to change the shutter speed to very slow – normal every day cameras will not do this. 10 seconds for the shutter speed will do - at least for a simple image. These amazing shots may well have taken longer!

One question which is asked a lot about light painting is why does the artist not show up on the pictures. It seems that you only show up if you cast light on yourself or sit still for too long. If you are quick and wear dark colors, you won't show up. That of course adds something else in to the equation – you have to be pretty sure of the shapes you are going to create beforehand. A sharp eye and a quick hand are, it seems, prerequisites.

Although the digital age offers opportunities which could only have been dreamed of in years gone by, light painting is hardly a new art from.  It can be traced back as far as 1914 when a husband and wife team, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth first used the technique to track the motion of clerical workers. It was not until 1935 and Man Ray in his Space Writing series that the form was used artistically. Even Picasso got in on the act for a short time.


Coming up to date in 2011 the light fossils that you can see here have helped to move light painting on to a new level and one in which artists create ever more sophisticated works of art. We would like to thank Darius Twin for his kind permission to reproduce some of his photographs here – above is a slide show direct from his Flickr photostream including more of these startling images. Also, please don't forget to pay his excellent website, dariustwin.com a visit!

Lost and Found

This is something of a hybrid – a combination of light painting, stop motion and special effects.  Having experimented with light painting myself I know just how long this must have taken, so a real hats off to creator Evan Nickel (a media student at Cal Poly).

Evan himself admits that this too over 200 hours to come together. It would have taken me 200 years.

Filmed in the town of San Luis Obispo in California after dark, he not only had to get to grips with the technical and creative side of this short but received plenty of attention from curious drunk people and suspicious police officers in to the bargain.

The end result is worth it- a visitor looks for his lost friend on a strange world.  It is a simple chase movie in a way, but the overall effect is wonderful.