Photographer Uses Fireworks and Long Exposures to Make Trees Drip Light
“Impermanent Sculptures” is a series of light-painting photos by Brazilian photographer Vitor Schietti. One of the interesting ideas found in the series is using fireworks to illuminate trees, resulting in photos that look like the leaves and branches are showering drops of light onto the ground.
“The series is the result of several years of research on long exposure photography,” Schietti tells PetaPixel. The photos are generally shot during a narrow window of fading twilight in which the brightness of the fireworks is balanced with the glow of the sky. There’s usually between 30 to 50 minutes to attempt the images before the lighting conditions are gone.
Some of the photos are the result of combining multiple exposures of the same scene together to merge the light paintings. Schietti also does minor adjustments to contrast and color to achieve his final look. Aside from those edits, everything you see was created by waving real fireworks.
This photo was created by combining 12 exposures (9 showed fireworks being waved around, and 3 of them showed the tree illuminated with flashes):
Here are some more photos from “Impermanent Sculptures”:
You can find more images from the project here. You can also see more of Schietti’s work on his website and on Flickr.
(via Vitor Schietti via Colossal)
Image credits: Photographs by Vitor Schietti and used with permission
