Hello all!
This week I’ve tried to take my concept of light painting with pre-existing artistic movement (in this case, dancing) and take it to the next level.
With a bunch help from some dancer buddies of mine, I’ve got a set of photos that go a long way in showing what kind of thing can be accomplished with this idea. I’ve had Derek (aka ZPlitz) and Chris do some dancing with a few new light toys I’ve picked up, and the results are pretty cool.
As you may have read in my previous post, this idea is all about showing movement. With these photos, Chris and I are accomplishing that with some led’s strips placed on his shoes.
The coolest thing about these photos is not the interesting light colours and designs that come out of it. If that’s all you want, you could have someone pose in one position, then get some other people to wave lights around, and you will get some interesting shots.
In fact, that is what we did in this shot, just to show another way to use lights in a hiphop/dance atmosphere.
Here, we have Derek doing his signature move, while I write ZPlitz over his head, and then light up his body a bit. This is more or less standard light painting.
But the coolest thing about these dancing photos is that what you are seeing is a representation of what actually happened.
Take this shot for example. You see the line of lights that go around the back of the shot? We found that that particular design happens when you have someone moonwalk for you. You can actually see Chris’ shoe move up and down. That, in fact, is what he was doing.
You see, while the lights and their colours certainly add something purely artistic to the photos, they actually illustrate what the person was doing over several seconds. While the light streaks don’t make the person’s movements obvious exactly, the more you consider them, the more you can deduce from them. In this photo, Derek made two leaping kicks, which you can see as the large, purple loops.
The same premise can be applied to different types of dance, like waving which is done mostly with the arms. So this time we put lights on his hands. Also, to add to the idea that Chris is the one who caused the lights to move in the way they did, I aimed a light on him to freeze his face in its previous position. The Ghostbusters shirt turned out to be a good choice.
So that is how far we have gone with this whole action-light-painting jazz. I’m really excited about it because there seems like there is so much more to do with it, and also because it hits on something really important: it tells a story. You can’t just glance at it and get everything you can out of it in a second. It needs a bit of thought, and gradually you can see more. Also it looks really cool!
I hope to have many more chances to try out this technique with talented artists, ranging from musicians to dancers, martial artists, acrobats and other movers and shakers of all sorts.
So, anyone who could lend their talents to me, please get in touch. I would love to work with you! Click HERE for my contact information.
Thanks for looking, and I hope you are enjoying this as much as I am. More to come. Also, thanks to my friends Chris and Derek for coming out. It was a ton of fun!
