Spectacular Light Painting Using Stencils


Painting with light is a long-exposure technique used by photographers to create really complex illuminations in a photograph. Artist TigTab seems to be quite the master of this technique! TigTab, who prefers to keep her identity a secret, builds the creative light art scenes using stencils on light boxes lined with silver foil.

TigTab mainly chooses urban backdrops for her photographs because she says, “I find beauty in decay–those abandoned and forgotten places all around us. By bringing light into the darkness of each space, it fills that space for a moment in time, and highlights both their beauty and impermanence.”

To create each photograph, she moves around the scene, repositioning the variety of stencils, and firing a camera flash to illuminate each design. All the while, the camera shutter is left open to capture the collection of light on one single frame. One photograph can take up to four hours to create. The final results are stunning and often people have a hard time believing that the scenes were created in-camera. When they realize the work is not computer-generated, TigTab says, “Speechless is a good description of people's initial reactions to date. They will often stare in awe, unable to verbalize initially what they are seeing.”








TigTab on Flickr
via [Illusion]

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