Saturday, August 25, 2007

Lori Stotko and Stuart Nafey

Even though I'm sometimes a photography art snob, I have to admit that I get a real kick out of light drawing, also known as light doodling. Basically, you take small light source, such as a penlight, point it towards the camera, and quickly draw something while keeping the shutter open. There's even a Flickr pool dedicated to light drawing. I've only tried this a few times. Although it's a lot of fun, I admit that my results are better described as "doodles", as opposed to "art".

("Light Doodle" by Andy Frazer)

Last week I came across the work of Half Moon Bay photographers Lori Stotko and Stuart Nafey, who go by the Flickr name UnklStuart. Lori and Stuart have created a set of beautiful light drawings that incorporate multiple colors, as well as relatively complicated free-hand drawings.

(Southwest, by Lori Stotko and Stuart Nafey)

One of the elements that I love about the above photograph is that it incorporates the natural nighttime background into the light drawing. Lori explained her process to me:

Lori, can you explain this photograph to me?

My husband and I are from Half Moon Bay California, and the howling dog is on our coastal links with the Ritz [Carlton] glittering in the background. He uses a Nikon D80 digital camera with various ISO settings, dark or mostly dark environment with long exposures.

Where did you get the colored lights?

We fabricated some special LED wands with Radio Shack supplies, designed with easy on-off push buttons and exposed bulbs. I have a variety of wands, multi-color and individual LED bulbs.

Are the figures really done free-hand?

I do all the mid-air drawing free-hand and have just discovered that I seem to have a knack for spatial relations on air designs. I will sometimes use my free hand to keep myself oriented in mid-air. We are just getting started and have some other ideas we hope to pull off.

3 Comments:

Blogger Joe Reifer said...

Very cool. I'm adding UnklStuart as a Flickr contact.

11:08 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Its hard to not enjoy photos like this. I have done so many myself I can't help but think about how much fun they are to make.

A CT Wedding Photographer

9:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wonder what their terms are for using a photo like Winter Scene. My printer made a mistake in sending out my newsletter and, long story short, now I have to send out a postcard to the entire list. Only a holiday theme will get attention now. I wonder how I could find out in a hurry. --Julie Schaefer in Minnesota, where most of the printers are above average.

6:44 PM  

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