Antonio Martinez
I’ve been a fan of photography since 2008, focusing mainly on nature photography, photography of night scenes and light painting.
I started out in photography with compact cameras was back in 2008, taking photographs of pretty much everything, but with a particular focus on the details and landscapes of nature and the countryside I found as I was out walking. Pretty quickly photography had turned into a passion and nature photography was my preferred style.
In 2010, I discovered night-time photography and fell in love with the possibilities it gave, but it wasn’t until 2013 when I purchased my first SLR and had built up more solid foundations in the basics of photography, that I was able to start taking night-time shots for real. Pretty much immediately, I became interested in the possibilities of using lights for much more than just illumination – being able to go beyond what was in front of me for real and instead being able to create things directly from my imagination, and light painting was the obvious way to do this.
In terms of lightpainting, I had done some sporadic test shots way back in 2010, but it was not until 2015 that I really got serious about creating designs with light in front of the camera. After trying a few home made tools, made from straws and pens, and buying some EL wire from Ivan and his shop, back then called Herramientas Light Painting, I was completely hooked by the ability to give free rein to your imagination in front of the camera and a new passion was born.
Since then I have tried many styles and distinct techniques within light painting and night-time illumination, building up what I think is a personal style through a series of effects and lighting styles. At the same time, I’ve never stopped experimenting in search of new ideas within my personal style and for the crazy ideas which come along from time to time.
I like to try lots of different things. In particular I have always been drawn towards the more hand-drawn style of lightpainting – creating characters with light, working with different lighting effects, creating tools I can use to achieve those effects and give life to certain ideas – from more realistic scenes with only light touches of light painting to more abstract images.
I also like to play with the setting of scenes by playing with techniques and resources such as camera rotation, kaleidoscopes, old or modified lenses, multiple exposure, lens swapping and changes of focal length, aperture, focus or tripod in order to create more complex, and generally more “fantasy” images.
In terms of how I work, I sometimes have “experimentation” sessions where I find an idea and then play with it until it gets to the final result and sometimes an idea comes to me fully-formed and I just put together the things needed to achieve it.
For me, light painting is a way to enjoy myself, to have a great time, to meet extraordinary people – but more and more I also consider it a serious form of artistic expression with the ability to create, to express ideas, emotions and feelings.
Now it is time for me to continue investigating and playing with lights, but now with the pleasure of being able to count on the support of the great team that make up Light Painting Paradise.
Carles Calero
Whenever I explain to my students or my clients what night photography and light painting are for me, I compare it as a return to childhood …
Do you remember when you first discovered the effects that colored pencils produced when passing over a surface?
Do you remember how fun it was to go out with the gang of friends to discover new worlds?
Do you remember the excitement of discovering for the first time a place you had never been and that your parents had told you not to go?
Those times when the word “boredom” and “routine” had no meaning for you because you just had not yet experienced it, and that at this point in life you probably know what it is.
In my opinion, night photography and light painting allow me to discover these new sensations for the second time. A new opportunity that has given me life so as not to trip over these ugly words again … and that everything is a colorful world, where the pencils have been replaced by colored lanterns, where the book “Pinta y Colorea” “It has changed for a black canvas of darkness in any remote place, where I will give birth to a new world of imagination.
If you want to see my works …
… if you want to see my commercial proposals …
… if you want to see my workshops, conferences and workshops …
… if you want to know a little more about my photographic career …
… I invite you to visit my web www.Carlescalero.com
Light Painting World Alliance Member (LPWA)
http://www.lpwalliance.com/database/Carles_Calero
Frodo Álvarez "Children of Darklight"
Frodo Álvarez is originally from Oviedo (Asturias, Spain) and full-time lightpainter today. In 2009 he discovers light painting and automatically ignites the spark of his artistic vocation, uniting his love for photography and relieving an old thorn that graffiti had left him stuck. No more lightpainters around him at that time, soon light painting becomes a hobby, a hobby, a passion, and founds with a group of friends the collective Children Of Darklight (abbreviated under the acronym DKL), to get ahead every Light Painting project that goes through your head. Children Of Darklight is currently formed by all those who believe in what we do and collaborate with us, we are all brothers of lights in the dark. From first line lightpainters like Edu Cajigal, DaveAstur, Sfhir, Riders of Light, Luis Medina, Mario Le2, etc … with whom Frodo works regularly, to video makers, models, stylists, make-up artists, colleagues LPers from all over the world … we are all Children Of Darklight.
After years experimenting with light painting, its different substyles, its innumerable possibilities, its tools, its secrets … Frodo has learned to control the light, being not only a veteran of the technique at a national level, but he has also earned himself a pulse being a world reference.
Frodo is the Spanish representative of the Light Painting World Alliance (LPWA), a worldwide group that promotes Light Painting as an art in itself independent of photography, and several of his photographs are part of the LPWA World Exhibition, sharing a poster with the most outstanding artists of the movement. He is also director of the International Congress LightArt Ciudad de Oviedo, and last 2016 he won the first prize in the ILPA (International Light Painting Award)
Hannu Huhtamo
Hannu Huhtamo is a visual artist from Helsinki, Finland. Since 2008 Hannu has been working on the art of Lightpainting and long exposure photography.
With different types of light sources, create new worlds in darkness and paint what you can not see.
The Light Art Photography by Hannu consists of incredible symmetrical flowers of light, fauna and luminous sculptures that draw in various places along the elements of the current environment and ambient lighting. The most unusual and forgotten places on the outskirts of the city become a surreal scene for his art.
Hannu is also part of the art collective of light Valopaja that organizes workshops and interactive representations of live painting in which the public has the opportunity to be part of the show by creating their own art.
Hannu’s work has gained much attention in the art world through the Internet and has appeared in several magazines, blogs, music videos and news channels such as CNN and Discovery Channel. He also collaborates with artists from around the world and with brands such as the manufacturer of flashlights Led Lenser.
www.hannuhuhtamo.com
Flickr
500px
Iris Cebrián "Shyroii"
I am a photographer born in Albacete. I was always interested in painting, photography and “light in motion” although at that time I had no idea what I was doing was light painting. It was in 2010 approximately, having already a reflex camera, a tripod and remote shutter, when I began to deepen this technique by trying different tools to reach the style that today characterized me: the effects with fabrics.
I usually work portraits although I’m also doing freehand drawings, still lifes, product photography …
Kim Von Koels
Kim von Coels is a German Photographer who resides in Glastonbury in the UK.
Her journey with light painting started many years ago when she was at Central st. Martins university in London. Due to the confines and costs of working with film her Light Painting passion didn’t fully ignite until over a decade later when the advances in digital technology allowed an affordable approach to this art form.
With many years experience in creative photography Kim likes to experiment using the camera as a tool to create pictures rather than just take pictures. Playing with different styles and techniques, she has A keen interest in art history, fashion and portraiture, photography as fine art and analogue photography, including printing her own images in a darkroom. She often merges different practices and ideas to create unique images, with light painting being only one of many of her creative outlets.
Her light Painting is usually centred around the human form, drawing inspiration from magic, ethereal and feminine vibes or futuristic sci-fi characters and scenes.
Nowadays Kim works with a large variety of Light Painting styles and techniques and has firmly embedded herself in the worldwide light painting community, collaborating with other Light Artists, participating in Light Painting events and her work appearing in several group exhibitions.
She also recently opened her first solo exhibition ‘See the Light’ at the Art Catto gallery in Loulé, Portugal as part of the Luza International festival of light.
www.thekrumbleempire.com
https://www.facebook.com/thekrumbleempire/
kimkrumble.blogspot.com
instagram; @krumblecreations
Light Hunters
The group of boys met in a workshop of Riders of Light in Barcelona. After that, a Facebook group was created with workshop assistants and the professors themselves.
Finally in that group there were 5 members and decided to stay to go out one night to take pictures and apply what we have learned. There, it began his story on a night when several photos were taken, two of which were selected in the international lightpainting contest organized by Lpwa, being these exposed in photokina as part of the 100 best international levels.
Each of the members provides the necessary spark for everything to work creatively:
Abel from the first moment showed his initiative and his ingenuity to create those scenes in moments of the night in which you stay blocked, in addition to having a unique tool, a optical superfiber of a very unusual size.
Edu was the first to teach the group what the olympus were capable of and what they could give us for this technique. He was also the owner of specific tools for light painting and multiple ways of use.
Ignasi brings his curious way of looking at the frames and choosing the most appropriate light sources for the photo we would make.
Javi is unique in seeing frames that none of the others saw. When the rest of us looked at awall or a ruined door, he saw some stairs or a hole in a wall to get the juice.
Loren is in charge, as in any great team, he directs, he coordinates the departures, he looks for the locations and make the group in general motivated and excited at each exit.
They are the Light hunters and have 3 years of continuous evolution in this technique in which the limits are the that marks our imagination.
Luis Medina
My name is Luis Manuel Lafuente Medina although everyone knows me as Medina, the name which I sign my works.
All my life I have been interested in photography, a hobby that I already very young inherited from my father. In 2014 I discovered Light Painting with DKL and since then I have not stopped.
I also like travel photography, night photography and landscapes, disciplines that I try to combine in my work Light Painting whenever I have the opportunity.
A very important part of Light Painting is the design of light tools something that occupies a large part of my time and that I like as much or more than putting myself behind the camera.
I hope you enjoy our tools as much as we do the Light Painting Paradise team.
Mass
A graphic designer by training, I first came across Light Painting in 2009. I was immediately attracted by the graphic possibilities it offered: the ability to write, to draw in space or to recreate a space entirely with light.
Light painting allows me to create true 2D artistic compositions by working in 3D space with my flashlights as brushes. I’m mainly inspired by street art and Arabic calligraphy and I’ve spent time learning as many techniques as possible related to this style of art to allow me to merge them all together in order to obtain unique results.
I’ve tried to come up with a very personal calligraphic style. My abstract compositions are mainly inspired by Arabic calligraphy, particularly in terms of the shapes, its fullness and its delicateness, but in a more condensed way – more akin to light sculptures. It’s almost like a choreography – the compositions are generally worked out in the studio where I can focus on the gestures required and then, once the shapes and forms have been mastered, I can replicate them in different locations in order to create my compositions.
I tend to use my body a lot to guide myself in the creation of my compositions, but I also work with visual cues present in my workspace (the lens of the camera, an element on the floor or on the walls, etc)
When it comes to the design of more pictorial works, the world of street art is also a great source of inspiration for me when it comes to creating my photos. In general I find that the gestures required for graffiti and light painting are very similar – the big difference is that the graffiti artist can see his design as he creates it whereas the light painter needs to remember what he has already drawn and where he drew it.
Equally, you can use an existing graffiti piece and “redraw” or highlight it in different ways. We can put the focus on different parts of the image by using different intensities of illumination, we can change the colours of the piece and we can even destructure it to use it as a background – the possibilities are endless.
www.youtube.com/channel/UC5fN9Qjv-LUse84q1Lt3onQ?view_as=subscriber
Riders of Light
Ivan Lucío and Javier Jiménez form the Light Painting signature “Riders of Light”.
Madrid local representatives of LPWA. They have been working since 2011 with an intense career at national level. Brands such as Coca Cola, Absolut, Nissan, Women, Secret or Louis Vuitton have had their experience for different Light Painting projects.
Advertising, photocall at events, exhibitions, masterclasses, workshops, exhibitions and numerous presentations at national and international photography congresses make Riders of Light a benchmark in this discipline.
www.facebook.com/Ridersoflight
https://www.facebook.com/Photocall-Light-Painting-514159855627758/
https://twitter.com/Riders_of_light
https://www.instagram.com/riders_of_light/
Stephen Knight
Stephen Knight is a photographer from Brisbane, Australia, who specialises in Light Painting, Cityscape, and Portrait Photography. Stephen first became interested in Light Painting through Urban Exploration in 2014, having been inspired by local photographers who were experts at illuminating URBEX locations with warm, cool, and coloured light. After visiting most of Brisbane’s URBEX locations, and changes to circumstances, Stephen started to find more responsible places to light paint. His style slowly evolved from illumination to creating light trails and light drawing, initially with home made tools, and then growing a large collection of tools from various manufacturers. He has light painted in many locations around Australia, as well as in the UK and Finland.
Stephen has always been keen to share his knowledge with other light painters. He usualy shares the photographic exposure, which flashlights and tools were used to create a photo, and techniques. Stephen has a vast knowledge of flashlights obtained from spending many hours on various flashlight forums. In 2017 he was asked to write flashlight buying guides for lightpaintingblog.com and lightpaintingphotography.com , and has followed this up with many flashlight reviews and a couple of technique articles.
Stephen’s light painting technique is always evolving, and styles include blade/light tunnels, graceful light trails, light plants, and light painting portraits. Stephen tries to make sure that his light paintings are in harmony with the surrounding environment. Having assisted with some advice and testing for Light Painting Paradise, he has enjoyed using many of Light Painting Paradise tools including the Plexi Rods, Fiber Optics, and Colour Filters.
https://www.facebook.com/stephen.knight.5602
https://www.instagram.com/stephenk_lightart/
Sven Gerard
Sven Gerard is a light painting artist and photographer from Berlin. He has been a passionate photographer for over 40 years. Since 2012 he works mainly in Light Painting.
An important part of his work is the development of new tools and techniques. Besides his artistic work he shares his knowledge and skills in workshops and articles, among others in his blog and on LightPaintingBlog.com.
A great motivation for him is the unique Light Painter community. The exchange with like-minded people, the organization of events and meetings as well as mutual support and inspiration have become an indispensable part of his life. To increase the awareness of the art form Light Painting and to strengthen the Light Painter community are important goals for him.
But least it is all about the special feelings, experiences and fun during the creative work with moving light in front of the camera.
https://www.lichtkunstfoto.de
https://www.instagram.com/lichtkunstfoto/
https://www.facebook.com/Lichtkunstfoto/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lichtkunstfoto/
Tom Hill
Tom Hill is a 39 year old photographer who lives in Newcastle in the North of England.
Tom discovered light painting thanks to his girlfriend who knew Ian Hobson, a well known artist in the field of light painting in England and since then he has spent much of his free time in the tunnels and dark places of Newcastle and its neighborhoods.
Tom is famous in particular for his complex orbs, made with a combination of an LED umbrella and other tools. Thanks to his collaboration with LightPaintingParadise and his cones, he has started developing new designs using brighter tools than the umbrella, such as the plexy tubes and the orb tools
Now he is still working on the creation of more and more complex orbs but he also works on the creation of more organic elements such as flowers and light graffiti. With his collaboration with lightpaintingparadise, he hopes to continue improving his light painting skills and increase his family of Spanish friends.