Picasso Light Work

Stephen Heywood

Pablo Picasso did a series of light drawings in 1949 using

long shutter speeds. Picasso’s light drawings

were done with a fine torch and a camera at a long

exposure time. The room would have been very dark to allow the light to appear so well on camera. Picasso was inspired by Gjon Mili who had previously taken photos of ice skaters with

lights attacked to their skates. Picasso’s image was

taken by leaving the shutters open, which

enabled him to capture the light streaks.

This image above is attack to imitate Picasso’s light work. It’s an abstract image that was edited on Photoshop to sharpen the image. I altered the exposure and contrast to define the image.

This image is another imitation of Picasso’s light work. Again I used Photoshop to edit the image to allow the light streaks to look fluid. I took both images on a shutter speed of 13 seconds to

allow enough light to come through the lens.