Long Exposure Light Painting with Fireworks by Vitor Schietti
In ‘Impermanent Sculptures‘, artist Vitor Schietti uses a firework to create long exposure, light paintings that only the camera’s eye sees.

The Brazilian-based artist says the time frame to achieve these images is very short, roughly 40 minutes per day, so he’s lucky if he gets 1 or 2 shots. In a press release Vitor delves into the process:

“While some images are acquired in one single exposure, some others are composed by the process of overlaying bits of light paintings from two or more pictures to compose the final image. Apart from this process and some color and contrast adjustments, the result is basically untouched, conceived entirely from real performance with fireworks. By creating these images, which I refer to as Impermanent Sculptures, I draw the viewer’s attention to abstract concepts taking place in real environments.”

 

Below you will find a selection from the series as well as a detailed explanation for how he created his most popular image, Tree of Life, including a behind the scenes video that shows Vitor using fireworks on a stick to reach the higher areas of the tree.

 

 

 

 

One of the most successful images, Tree of Life, of a vigorous white tree standing alone before a clean horizon, was achieved overlaying 12 pictures taken consecutively on location, 9 performing light paintings with fireworks in different parts of the three, with the assistance of a long rod which I manipulated from the ground and also from up the canopy, where I climbed while my assistant managed the camera. I also shot 3 pictures firing a flash to illuminate the three as a whole. Nothing was created in Photoshop apart from the process of overlaying images with the lighten blending mode and some contrast and color adjustments.
 
This particular tree is called ‘Cagaita’, it blossoms only during a couple of weeks per year, replacing all its leaves by white flowers when the dry season is coming to an end and the rains begin to fall again.