Light painting dates back to 1889 when
Étienne-Jules Marey and
Georges Demeny traced human motion in the first known light painting
Pathological Walk From in Front. The technique was used in
Frank Gilbreth's work with his wife
Lillian Moller Gilbreth in 1914 when the pair used small lights and the open shutter of a camera to track the motion of manufacturing and clerical workers.
Man Ray, in his 1935 series "Space Writing," was the first known art photographer to use the technique. He made a self-portrait with a time exposure and while the shutter was open, with a penlight he inscribed his name in cursive script in the space between him and the camera, overwriting the letters with more cryptic marks. Historian of photography Ellen Carey (*1952) describes her discovery of the artist's signature in this image while examining it in 2009. (1940) Photographer
Barbara Morgan began making light paintings in 1935–1941. Her 1941
photomontage Pure Energy and Neurotic Man incorporates light drawing and realises her stated aim; "that if I should ever seriously photograph, it would be...the flux of things. I wanted then, and still do, to express the ‘thing’ as part of total flow." In making innovative photographs of dancers, including
Martha Graham and
Erick Hawkins she would have them move while holding lights. In 1949
Pablo Picasso was visited by
Gjon Mili, a photographer and lighting innovator, who introduced Picasso to his photographs of ice skaters with lights attached to their skates. Immediately Picasso started making images in the air with a small flashlight in a dark room. This series of photos became known as Picasso's "light drawings." Of these photos, the most celebrated and famous is known as
Picasso draws a Centaur.
Peter Keetman (1916–2005), who studied photography in
Munich from 1935 to 1937, was the 1949 co-founder of
FotoForm (together with
Otto Steinert, Toni Schneiders et al.), a group with great impact on the new photography in the 50s and 60s in Germany and abroad. He produced a series
Schwingungsfigur (oscillating figures) of complex linear meshes, often with moiré effects, using a point-source light on a pendulum. During the 1970s and '80s
Eric Staller used this technology for numerous photo projects that were called "Light Drawings". Light paintings up to 1976 are classified as light drawings. In 1977
Dean Chamberlain extended the technique using handheld lights to selectively illuminate and/or color parts of the subject or scene with his image
Polyethylene Bags On Chaise Longue at the
Rochester Institute of Technology. Dean Chamberlain was the first artist to dedicate his entire body of work to the light painting art form. Now, with modern light painting, one uses more frequently choreography and performance to photograph and organize. In the 1970s and early 1980s,
Steve Mann invented, designed, built, and used various wearable computers to visualize real-world phenomena such as sound waves, radio waves, and sight fields by light painting using
computational photography. Since the 1980s,
Vicki DaSilva has been working exclusively in light painting and light graffiti. In 1980, DaSilva started making deliberate text light graffiti works, the first being "Cash". She continued these light graffiti photographs throughout the 1980s and eventually started using 4 foot fluorescent bulbs hooked up to pulley systems to create sheets of light. In the early 2000s she began making work with 8 foot fluorescent lamps, holding the lamp vertically and walking through spaces with it. From the late 1980s
Tokihiro Satō's photographs combine light, time and space in recording his movements in a series beginning with his “photo respirations” where his use of an 8 x 10-inch
view camera fitted with a strong
neutral-density filter to achieve lengthy exposures lasting one to three hours provide the opportunity for him to move through the landscape. When shooting in daylight, using a mirror, he flashed light from the sun into the camera lens, resulting in points of light and flares that punctuate the image and track his movements, though his presence is not seen directly. For nocturnal or interior views he “draws” with a small torch. Light painting as an art form enjoyed a surge in popularity in the 21st century, partly due to the increasing availability of
dSLR cameras and
mobile phone cameras enabling immediate feedback for adjustments of lights and exposure; advances in portable light sources such as LEDs; and the advent of media sharing websites by which practitioners can exchange images and ideas. In March 2007,
JanLeonardo coined the term
light art performance photography (LAPP) which emphasises the performative aspect that is evident earlier in
Satō's work, and used it to describe the creation of new figures and structures only with light. Following the original
Greek meaning of
Photography (Greek φῶς, phos, genitive: φωτός, photos, "light" (of the luminary), "brightness" and γράφειν, graphein, "drawing", "carve", "create", "write") it is a
symbiosis of
light art and photography. The main difference from other
light painting or
light writing, it has been claimed, In 2012,
Reid Godshaw created an artistic identity known as "Harmonic Light", creating portraits of people around the world at events and festivals, asking questions to get in tune with subjects' personalities, intentions and motivations to change the world. The work combines many self-taught methods of creating imagery using lasers, custom made LED POV brushes and wands, power drills, handheld RGB flashlights, fiber optics, and even lasers to create a meaningful connection of time and space that embodies how people feel. Godshaw has created imagery at many events around the world including The Grammys in 2019 and over 100 festivals. == Techniques ==