Tea at Trianon: Dancing Light Paintings

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, May 3, 2021

Dancing Light Paintings

From My Modern Met:

Light is beautiful yet ephemeral. And photography, at its core, is about light; the practice takes its name from the Greek words phos meaning “light,” and graphê, meaning “drawing.” Brazilian photographer Vitor Schietti has fully embraced the nature of light in his work. In 2015, he began a series entitled Impermanent Sculptures that incorporates a technique known as light painting to surround trees and other natural objects with fiery streaks of illumination. These glowing landscapes evoke the magic of fairy trails, but they are the result of a delicate photographic process.

To create his light paintings, Schietti must perfectly time his exposures. After choosing a location, the photographer uses fireworks to produce streaks of light that are captured with a slow shutter speed. Sometimes a single shot is all he needs to cover a tree in energetic illumination. However, he also composites images together using Photoshop for maximum effect. According to Schietti, capturing an image is a precise dance of timing. “I use a neutral density filter to find the perfect balance between the brightness of the sparkles and the natural light by twilight, so it's a fine and limited balance, only a few minutes each day.” (Read more.)