History

Photography comes from the Greek words phos (“light”), and graphis (“stylus”, “paintbrush”) or graphí, together they mean “drawing with light”.

Frank Gilbreth: Light Painting Photography, 1914

Light Painting Photography can be traced back to the year 1914 when Frank Gilbreth, along with his wife Lillian Moller Gilbreth, used small lights and the open shutter of a camera to track the motion of manufacturing and clerical workers. The Gilbreth’s did not create the photographs as an artistic endeavor; they instead were studying what they called “work simplification”. The Gilbreth’s were working on developing ways to increase employee output and simplify their jobs. While they were not using light painting as an artistic medium they did produce the first known light painting photographs.

Work Simplification Study

Cyclegraph

Man Ray: Light Painting Photography, 1935

The first artist to explore the technique of light painting was Man Ray. Man Ray was best known for his avant-garde photography. He worked in several different media, and thought of himself as a painter above all else. Man Ray’s contribution to light painting photography came in his series “Space Writing”. In 1935 Man Ray set up a camera to produce a self-portrait. He opened the shutter of his camera and used a small penlight to create a series of swirls and lines in the air. Random circles and swirls are all these photographs were thought to be until in 2009, a photographer by the name of Ellen Carey, held a mirror up to the work and discovered the seemingly random light drawing was actually Man Ray’s signature.

Space Writing

Gjon Mili: Light Painting Photography, 1930-1940′s

Next on the list of light painters is Gjon Mili. Gjon Mili was born in Albania and came to the United States in 1923. Gjon was trained as an engineer and was a self-taught photographer. In the mid 1930’s Mili, working with Harold Eugene Edgerton from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), pioneered photoflash photography. Gjon used stroboscopic light to capture the motion of everything from dancers to jugglers in a single exposure. His photoflash techniques are still very much used today in light painting photography. Mili used this technique to study the motion of dancers, musicians, and figure skaters.

Nude Descending Stairvase

FBI Agent Del Bryce

Mili’s creation of photoflash photography work was just his first gift to the light painting world. In the 1940’s Gjon attached small lights to the boots of ice skaters he then opened the shutter of his camera and created what would be the inspiration for some of the most famous light painting images ever created.

Figure Skater Carol Lynne

Figure skater Carol Lynne

In 1949, while on assignment for Life Magazine, Gjon Mili was sent to photograph Pablo Picasso at his home in the South of France. While there Mili showed Picasso some of his light painting photographs of the figure skaters. Pablo was immediately inspired, Picasso took a penlight and began to draw in the air. Mili set up his camera and captured the images. This brief meeting yielded what would become known as Pablo Picasso’s Light Drawings. Of all of these Drawing the most famous is known as “Picasso Draws a Centaur”.

Picasso Draws a Centaur

Everything is illluminated

Jack Delano: Light Painting Photography, 1943

In 1943 Jack Delano a photographer for the Farm Security Administration used a slow shutter light painting technique to capture to motion of railroad workers and railroad cars while snapping photographs of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad.

Santa Fe Railroad Yard

Santa Fe Railroad Worker

Andreas Feininger: Light Painting Photography, 1949

In February 1949 another Life Magazine photographer created some light painting photographs. In 1939 photographer, Andreas Feininger, immigrated to the United States. In 1943 he joined the staff of Life Magazine and in 1949 Andreas was on assignment in Anacostia, Maryland, Feininger set his camera up on a tripod, opened the shutter and produced light painting photographs of helicopter taking off and landing.

Ribbon on Hannover Street

Eric’s “Light Drawings” series could be the very first Light Art Performance Photographs ever created. It could be argued that Man Ray’s “Space Writing” series were the first light art performance pieces but there is no doubt that Staller’s images such as Light Tubes, Happy Street, and Technicolor Torsos all evoke elements of performance art. Eric’s “Light Drawings” series is one of the most influential series on light painters today.

Happy Street

Light Tubes

Technicolour Torsos

Jacques Pugin: Light Painting Photography, 1979

Landscape photographer Jacques Pugin was born in Bulle, Switzerland and moved to Zurich to become a photographer in 1972. In 1979 he began work on his light painting series “Graffiti greffés”. Jacques continued working on his light paintings until 1982. “Graffiti greffés” was broadly exhibited and published on an international level. Pugin’s light painting work was so well received he was awarded the Federal Grant of Applied Arts for three consecutive years.

Graffiti Greffes #11

Graffiti Greffes #25

Jozef Sedlák: Light Painting Photography, 1980

Photographer Jozef Sedlák was born in 1958 in Bratislava, Slovakia. Sedlák began his light painting work in 1980 with his series “Kurz sebapoznania”. Kurz sebapoznania translated into english means “Rate-Self Knowledge”. He is one of a group of artist working with staged photography who, in the 1980’s, represented Slovakia on the international scene.

Rate Self - Knowledge 1882

Rate Self-knowlage 1983

The Light of Democracy #2 1990

Stories from the Subconscious 1992

Vicki DaSilva: Light Painting Photography, 1980

Vicki DaSilva started creating her Light Painting Photographs in 1980 while she was attending college. Her work was heavily influenced by Joan Jonas and Richard Serra; artists that she worked with in her early years. Vicki has the honor of holding several light painting titles. She is the first female light painting artist and the first light painter to create “Text Light Graffiti”. In 1986 Vicki was on a light painting trip to Paris where she met her husband Antonio DaSilva. Antonio was an electrician and she was searching for a way to use fluorescent bulbs in her work, they began light painting together in 1988. This was also the year (1988) when Vicki began attaching the fluorescent lights to a pulley track system. She is known for her light graffiti work as well as her elaborate installation based light paintings. Vicki also creates handheld traces and designs that she calls “Light Graffiti”. Vicki lives in Pennsylvania and continues to create light painting photographs.

Light Tartans Fountain Park #4 2007

Baseball Field #1 1988

CASH 1981

Vertical Light Walk 2009

Kamil Varga: Light Painting Photography, 1983

Kamil Varga calls his light painting photography “ Luminographie” and he describes it as “drawing with light on photosensitive material”. He began light painting or “Luminographie” in 1983 when he created one of his first image “Paths of Light”.

Paths Of Light

Kamil has created a large amount of work spanning several decades. His Light Painting images are focused on the human form. Kamil says this of his choice of mediums “Luminografie is great that you do not need a studio, you can practice quietly at home. Just a room where there is complete darkness.”

Autumn Psycotheropy and other Experiences #32

Alfa

John Hesketh: Light Painting Photography, 1985

In 1985 Artist John Hesketh took his camera into his back yard and began work on his first light painting series “Homelife”. The subject matter of this series were objects in his everyday home life. John says this about the series “Before I was working with this work I was interested in how black and white records of red, green and blue made a full color image. While an image was separated I would draw paint scratch each black and white record before reassembling them on color film using the RGB filters. Making colors using a black crayon or paint was intense, educational, but very time consuming, 3 to 6 months an image. I also felt graphic instead of photographic. One night I took the camera and filters that I had been using to reassemble my drawings onto film, outside into my backyard and pointed it at this statue and cactus. The next day I saw this film and the road ahead.” John uses color filters in his work where he will separate one color from entering into the camera while he is light painting. Hesketh lives in Anaheim California and continues to explore his light painting process with his latest light painting series “Los Angeles”.

Darryl

Jerry

Diedre

Tokihiro Sato: Light Painting Photography, 1988

Tokihiro Sato was born in 1957 in Sakata, Yamagata Japan. His Light Painting series Photo-Respiration is his most well known work. Photo-Respiration consists of two subsets, Breathing Light and Breathing Shadows. Sato shoots with an 8×10 camera and his exposures can last up to three hours. He was trained as a sculpture but found that photography better suited his desires. Tokihiro received his Masters degree from Tokyo National University. His light painting photographs are held throughout the world in public and private museums including the Guggenheim in New York and Museum of Modern Art in Saitama, Japan. He is currently a professor at the Tokyo University of the Arts and continues to work on his light painting imagery.