Photography Culture

These Light Calligraphy Long Exposure Photos Will Amaze You

Chris Gampat
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07/21/2015
2 Mins read

Last Updated on 07/21/2015 by Chris Gampat

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All images by Julien Breton and David Gallard. Used with permission.

Julien Breton doesn’t earn his living by selling artwork or even photography. But he worked with photographer David Gallard on a special light painting calligraphy project. Julien is a dancer that works with a travelling troupe and along with David creates original photography artwork as part of his passion. None of it is Photoshopped and all of it is incredible. We talked to Julien about how to create light paintings like this and his experience of learning more about the craft.

Phoblographer: Talk to us about how you got into helping to create this type of photography.

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Julien: I started traditional calligraphy 16 years ago. By discovering Arabic calligraphy and mainly the calligrapher Hassan Massoudy. 9 years ago, a photographer called me to asking me if i had done light-painting. I said “I am not interested Because this is a fake and digital technic”. He answered me “no, it’s not a fake–just long exposure photography”.

I was really far away from knowing the possibilities of a camera and some simple lights.

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And the adventure started. I began to work alone, but photography isn’t a passion for me. Only a way to create Light calligraphy in the air. So I worked with the best light painting photographer David Gallard. I work with him for 6 years and he’s the live light painting photographer of our dance company “Turn off the Light”.

Phoblographer: What attracted you to light painting?

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Julien: The movement and the challenge. On paper, i always tried to increase the size of my artwork to work more and more with gestural calligraphy. To work with my entire body and not only with my arm. Light-painting allows me to use the 3 dimension too…

About the challenge of writing in reverse and without feedback, i think it’s very near of the philosophy of Asian calligraphy. Getting calligraphy writing in a one shot, with energy in each stroke and in an extreme concentration. When i do Light-painting i look like a disciple of tai-chi-chuan.

Phoblographer: How did you go about perfecting the technique?

Julien: By working each calligraphy session until I solved all the problems of the composition. I repeat à lot and i’m exigent.

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Phoblographer: What made you choose the specific locations, compositions and scenes that you did?

Julien: Total improvisation. We had chance with my dance company to perform in different country. So, each time it become for David and me a playground..

Phoblographer: How much further do you plan on going? Maybe painting out entire paragraphs if at all possible?

Julien: I am working nowadays With Cisco and will from studio Light-painting to create a new live show With their Light painting video real time system. This system we used for the communication campaign INGELEC.

And we have a tour in Algery planned for october With Turn off the Light. Sure; each year i discover new body techniques to be more precise.

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david gallard Julien Breton light calligraphy Long Exposure
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.