Interacting with the Scene
Light painting as a reaction to the landscape
I see my light painting work as very different from my “straight” night landscapes - leaving traces of my own movement in the photo makes it akin to a performance. I could (and have) made light paintings that were totally detached from the landscape, but more often I come across an object or feature of the landscape that just begs to be interacted with. Take this picnic table. I liked the way my super wide-angle lens made the lines recede, and immediately started thinking of ways to integrate light painting into the shot. My initial idea (above) was to draw a sort of light grid above the table, mimicking the rectangle of the table top.
After taking that shot, I tried to think of other ways to interact with the scene. In the photo above, I used a string of battery-powered LED lights, swinging them in a circle above my head as I walked behind the table. The result was a kind of separation between the foreground and background. Regardless of whether I like the results, I value light painting because it prods me to look at my environment in new ways and think about the interaction between human and landscape.
I very much like this approach Toby. For me the linear image works better than the more circular effect for this subject but I think both are valid responses to the environment. And I agree with you on the performance thing. Though all long exposure landscape photography is kind of a performance since you end up with something that isnt actually there and just you being there has “influenced” that environment. But what you are doing here is really taking that notion and running with it. I like the way you think.
Paul Green on Jan 13 at 09:20 PM
Maybe you could take it a step further an try to do a sort of evolution over time with the same composition. Possibly have the light become even more animated and interact with the landscape. Could be interesting. I’m not sure how long your set-ups are though, so it could be completely impractical. Great work as always too :)
EmrysR on Jan 14 at 07:47 AM