Photographer Blends Stop Motion and Light Painting to Create Moving Creatures

Photography News

Have you tried light painting yet? (If not, maybe you should—it’s a blast!) If so, prepare to be impressed and probably humbled. Photographer and light painter extraordinaire Darren Pearson will blow your mind with his combination of stop-motion film and LED artistry:

If you’re not familiar with what light painting is and how it’s done, it’s pretty basic (but takes a lot of patience and practice). Light paintings are produced by leaving the shutter open and “drawing” an image in front of the camera using a light pen or flashlight.

Pearson takes it to the next level. He created the spectacular light painted scenes of humans and animals for his short film, Lightspeed, with a Canon 6D and an RGB LED.

Here’s Pearson in action. (Note: there’s a small bit of profanity at the end of this clip):

Now imagine that process replicated over and over in order to create that entire stop motion film!