Thirty-nine-year-old photographic artist Michael Bosanko has made pictures, which have not been Photoshopped, using coloured torches at night in the same way that an artist uses a paintbrush. His digital camera stays on a long exposure, ranging from 10 seconds to one hour to create the images against the backdrop of Cardiff, Newport and the Brecon Beacons in south Wales. Welsh artist Michael Bosanko has spent the past five years developing his technique. These images were taken with a long exposure on a digital Canon camera. Based in Cardiff, most of the light art is drawn either in the empty urban night spaces of cities like Newport and the artist's home town, or in the more desolate landscapes of the Brecon Beacons. To get the best results the shoot depends on the amount of ambient light that is available. If Bosanko is working in an urban environment like a city then there is lots of ambient light that means he has to work quickly. Covering the lens of the torches in coloured acetate paper brings different shades of the spectrum to images.
“What I feel I am trying to convey is a sense of an aesthetically pleasing shape that clearly does not belong in that particular place or area,” says Bosanko. “The inspiration for Light Graffiti came to me around five years ago when I was on holiday in Greece,” says Bosanko. “I was taking a picture of a very bright moon one evening in Greece when I noticed a swirling effect because the exposure had been left too long.”
Bosanko's next plans are to take the Light Graffiti around the country and possibly internationally.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2009/feb/12/michael-bosanko-light-graffiti.
