lightbrush kids "Flora"

We're going back to the beginning, it seems. I can't even find any post-modern irony in this piece (such as in the work of that Japanese fellow who inserts himself into famous paintings using a similar technique). This is a straight-up pre-raphaellite, symbolist piece from the end of the last century. I've seen this tendency cropping up in photo magazines, advertising shots, etc. What on earth does this mean? I don't want to demean this image, it's certainly well executed and pretty, but it's so much of a throwback that I just can't take to it.

Carl Root wrote:

"These would be in an alternative process category, along with a host of other traditional and nontraditional processes. To compare the two is to show little appreciation for the distinction between capturing and creating. While Jorg does use setups rather than recording the 'real' world', it is still a pure form of capturing light . . . . as opposed to distorting it."

 

Geez. I'm sorry. Thanks for the clarification. Didn't mean to compare processes, just noting another approach to painterly photography, if you will. I'm perhaps insensitive to the mysticism of lightbrush painting, but heck, I just meant Going's work LOOKS better, not that it IS better. As I ascend in my spiritual attainment I will perhaps see the light.

 

 

I cannot decide whether the art is in the taking of the photograph or in the composition of the subject matter. Nevertheless, very pleasing piece. Super effort.

Hey, I'm all for modernism and postmodernism and ironic detachment, but I think it's loony to say that modernism rendered every form of expression that came before it obsolete. Bob Dylan wrote in a Frech Romantic style for years. Stephin Merritt writes songs by the dozen in a style was last fashionable when Cole Porter was in his prime. So Jorg works in an 1890s Symbolist mode, albeit using a technique that relies on flashlights and modern film emulsions.

 

These photos hark back to old, largely abandoned artistic movements, but they're very much of the present, and they come across as relevant to me.

 

Anyway, isn't irony a dead end when it's expected to be everywhere? And why should sincerity be treated as an anachronism? Sincerity may have receded from high art shortly after the Armory Show, but it didn't recede in the outside world. I find it refreshing that these images don't try to wink at the viewer through a layer of irony, and also aren't kitsch.

as a beginner in this technique i am constantly searching out 'masters' to study and emulate as i develop my own style. they are few and far between. thank god for you and emil. i am learning from you both as i struggle to make my own way.

 

as for critique, i can only say perfect. i wouldn't change a thing. compostition, lighting, pose, expression, exposure; all good.

 

i will read anything you have to write on the subject of lightbrushing.

Kitsch and twee are two words that come to mind. Still, very well executed and would fit well on bath-soap and bubble-bath packaging.

Steve,

Irony has been used in painting at least since the time of Breugel and can be a gentle or savage form of deprecation of self or other. It's what keeps most intelligent people sane and it certainly does not exclude sincerity. I doubt if either are a dead end.

Lovely.....Looks like a painting in a Italian museum. Caravaggio Italian painter make it with a brush, you make the same with a film. Bravo

 

This work is so beautiful. I wish to buy your photo. Would you sell me a copy signed by you ?? :)

Successful use of this technique. I'm impressed by the staging here, using the photographic medium to evoke a different style. Light painting isn't a new technique, certainly, but I've noticed it cropping up more recently in some places. Not entirely sure why, though it does stand out from a sea of photographic similarity.

 

This particular image has good lighting, an evocative mood, and good staging. It is unfortunate that the right leg didn't get the same evenness of lighting that the rest of the figure did, however. I do find that look somewhat disturbing (it wouldn't be so if the lighting were equally directional thoughout the image). I know that this technique requires previsualization and good control of the light, but I wonder how soon we'll have the digital camera version of this which allows the photographer to check his/her work as the image is created...

add one more to the tally of adoration for this photograph. It's beauty and carefully thought out composition prompt me to make my first comment on photonet for a POW. I am sorry that some feel that because it has a reflection on the past it is out of date. I feel that in a time when so much attention is given to photograghs that depict that which is ugly or shocking because they grab your attention it is wonderful to see a photograph grab you for it's beauty and elegance. After viewing this photo on Monday the image has remained in my mind with a sence of wonder all week. Hasn't the artist then achieved his goal? Jorg please leave out no detail, no matter how small, when educating us on your techniques

An excellent marriage of pictorialist themes and vision with modern materials. I complement you.

A simply lovely and well executed and all around

nice photograph. It could have only been accomplished by a "Master Photorapher" or artist/

art director and technicaian with a camera!.

 

Lovely and well done, all around.

 

 

I've never been a big fan of postmodern irony. I was just surprised to find irony entirely absent from this work. I'm more interested in why there seems to be a pretty big push back to pictorialism. If it were being done by a few individuals I'd think of it as nothing more than a curiosity. However, find it a little frightening as a larger tendency because it feels like an aesthetic disengagement from the real world.

Maybe it's because reality is jammed down our throats, 24/7.

This is a fine image, but I would like to see a more active psychology underlying it's beauty. These women seem to be languishing, waiting for the bus, maybe? The best work of the painters mentioned so often above, usually have some reason for painting beautiful people in beautiful light. This varied from Velasquez' paintings of royalty (underlying reason: money) to Carravagio's Biblical tragedies (underlying reason: inspiration, underlaid with... money!) Bosch had more radical stuff going on, but even Vermeers' motives of romanticising the ordinary life of the bougeoise offered something other than "isn't this lovely?".

Perhaps I'm missing something here (wouldn't be the first time), but I don't get the mother/daughter thing mentioned by Marc G (who has a wonderful imagination). In fact, these women look like chronological contemporaries, sisters maybe.

While this is visually rich and very well done, I want more depth... something to carry my interest beyond the surface issues. In any case, it's quite worthy of P.O.W. recognition, and more... t

p.s. please put me on that email list for painting with light insights and tips, and thanks very much for the effort and the offer.

now I have been looking at this picture for a week, and feel it is time to make a small comment..

Technically this picture is flawless! Very well excecuted light painting..

one question: You used a daylight film here - and by doing that, You obtained those subdued warm colors.. Was that intentional? I like it! , but also I wander, what result might have become, if you had used Fuji RTP II slide film.. SO deep and saturated colors!

There has been a discussion about this technique.. if it is anacronistic or not.. And of course it is not! It is only a technique. And actually an easy one at that! especially in color..

The difference between this and "normal" flash lightning is - of course - that we have the possibillity to choose exactely where to put the light. like a painting. But it is still not a painting.

I think the problem in pictures like this is, that we tend to go back in time and - in addition to the technique - we use "old fashioned" settings and props. Some are timeless: the flowers - the lilly that symbolizes innocence - the efeu, that symbolizes life concouring death.(where is death here?).. All those vanitas motives has to be put in with care, as evrybody knows about them - whether they think they do or not..it's a part og our common past /history of art..

SO: if you had used some more modern props/symbols, I think the discussion would have been different...

STILL: I applaud you on your way of making your images.

...Wonderful computer aided painting! I also like the one titled "Learning to fly". Light painting is great stuff but you have really picked it up a notch with the use of Photoshop.

 

This reminds me of some beautifully exposed Kodachrome 25 in National Geographic in the 70's. Howard Shatz did a wonderful pictorial book called "Redheads" that he shot in an underwater studio, all straight chrome and no photoshop of course. These images remind me of that lighting.

 

Keep up the good work and have fun computer painting.:-)

I think the photos of the book "Redheads" by H.Shatz were not made in an underwater studio. I know the book and it`s realy fascinating. Some years ago he made photos in an underwater studio but I knew an other, not so prominent photographer,(I guess he`s from South-America) wich made such pictures much more earlyer(and better) in a not as half so professional self-builded uw-studio... and by the way: not all that looks like PS is realy Photo shop...

Thanks for the great honour and all the comments and the mails. Many of them I`ll answer via e-mail and some I try to answer now. First at all: the pictures in the Kids folder I create for the waiting room in a childrens hospital. The senior registrar ask me about some photos and first I thought my style and technique will be to dark. But my daughter Sara and her friends told me I should realise this pictures, they wanted to be part of a fairy tale. So we had a lot of fun during the days of preparation and if you came into my studio these days it was hard to imagine that you`re inside, not outside in the wood. In the nights the photos came to being there was a special magic mood inside the studio. Hard to explain... I love the old irish tales about elfs and magician and I hope I`ll never be to old for this stuff !

Some of you were talking about Rembrand and Carravagio, about art and elephant feet so I would say - the feet at Flora are a little bit... Picasso ? It would be an easy thing to correct it with PS, but than it will be a photoshoped image and not that what we want to do with this pictures to show what is able without PS.

Carl asked a really interesting question about MY favourite picture. It`s the first time I ask myself this question. Oh, I thought a long time about this... I guess it`s Spirit in you( I know Isidro, the title is crude, I call it Tina with mask). Why? I think this girl has more mystique in real life as all my pictures seem to be. It`s hard to explain ...

Some of you had trouble with rating, cause the pictures look like paintings. - All you see at this photo was really in front of my camera. The only thing I had to do was a little light here, some light there... The only difference to a studio shot is that I do the light piece by piece... but thank you, that`s what I intend, that people are reminded to paintings... and why using photography? I have not the talent to paint and draw on canvas...

 

PS : Emil, the saturation of the colours are depending on the filters I use with my penlight. I have more then 600 colours. With some of them you have to paint a very long time till you reach this saturation... and important is the right paper, kodak for UK 3 or better Ilfochrome .

But in the next time I`m going to use not so much colours your artworks are a great inspiration! photo.net is a great inspiration,- thanks to all!

 

jörg

 

IMO a photograph such as this documents the artwork instead of being the artwork itself. The work of art in this case seems to be essentially how Jorg arranged figures, used costumes, etc. Unless photographers view it from the standpoint of light painting, it's the living diorama that's worthy of the critique, not the photography, per se. Perhaps Jorg's use of light painting can be critiqued on this site but I see the light painting as accidental to what he produced. His true artwork -- however that may be judged - lies in a category other than photography. Just a personal non-expert opinion.

FYI, the Howard Schatz book Jörg referred to above is titled Seeing Red and unfortunately, it's long out of print. I've seen used copies of it for sale at Amazon.com for upwards of $300 (although the prices seem to have come down of late) so apparently quite a few people (including me!) have a high opinion of his work. The book Daniel referred to is titled Pool Light and alas, I believe it's likewise out of print...

"- the efeu, that symbolizes life concouring (sic) death"... efeu = ivy... t

It is this kind of image that creates a deeper feeling and prokokes thought. Your photography takes us well beyond the simple "face-value" elements like color, contrast, and composition.

You are a master of this technique! i am waiting for your guide to go online. truly beautiful photograph

I can only repeat what the previous comments have said.... Outstanding work!!!