Drawing with Light

Before photographic film was invented artists had used cameras for hundreds of years. The very word photography reflects a deep connection with drawing:

Our word 'photography' is taken directly from the French word 'Photographie'. Photo- +‎ -graphy, together meaning "drawing with light" or "writing with light". From φωτός (phōtós, “(genitive) of light”), and γράφω (gráphō, “I write”).

It’s also fascinating to consider the verbal relationship between writing and drawing, both having the same Greek root. However the English word to ‘draw’ has a different history. Back in the year 1200, we used the Old English dragan "to drag, in the sense of to draw something along the ground" which was derived from the Proto-Germanic dragan "to draw or pull" Thus the use of the word ‘drawing’ in English is more to do with dragging a pencil across paper, it is much more physical, implying the action of making a mark. However at the same time it was also used to mean "to pull out a weapon". Therefore to draw a line comes from the same etymological root as to draw a gun. 

I’m meandering again but there is some point to all this, and that is that as drawing students I think you could make much more use of photography without a camera.

The most common uses of camera-less photography in the darkroom, are the photogram, the luminogram and the chemigram. Man Ray called his photograms Rayograms, but they are basically the same thing, the only difference being you often work directly with the negative rather than on the photographic paper.

The basic principle of Rayograms is very simple; an object of some sort is placed on the film, the film is then exposed to light and then developed. Where the object was on the film blocking the light, that area remains clear (or is white when projected). ‘Rayograming’ in its basic form thus leaves white silhouettes on black film. This works for both still and moving black and white film stock, therefore you can make really interesting 16mm films using this technique.

In Leeds the artist Martha Jurksaitis runs the Cherry Kino project which is focused on making camera-less films and looks at a myriad of ways to develop old film stock and how to obtain fascinating visual results by working with film developing technologies.

The image below is taken from Martha's 16mm film entitled 'Nail Art'. A film made entirely using nail art materials - nail varnishes and nail art stickers and nothing else.

Portuguese Woman Of War (Super 8 & 16mm, 2013/14, single screenfilm)

If you think of these films simply as moving drawings (basically as sophisticated flickerbooks) it can open out a whole range of alternative drawing possibilities.
At a most basic level there are those spinning two sided cards that we used to make when we were at school in the 1950s (TV was only just coming in then)

Just cut a card circle and make an image on both sides then put string through holes on the edges and twist. When you pull the string taut the card spins and you see both images at once. This is a very easy way to make one image blend with another and of course you could film the results using a digital camera, thus fusing old and new technologies. 

At a more complex level these ideas can become performance or environmental based, such as artist Brion Gysin’s attempt to market flicker machines as a performative substitute for the living-room TV. 

Brion Gysin’s flicker machine. A simple device which consists of holes cut into paper and hung from a light source in the same way that we use paper light shades, the difference being that these are designed to spin, the shadows will of course move around and over the whole room. I'll come back to shadows later. 

Perhaps the most accessible area to get into however is photograms. We have a great black and white darkroom down in Vernon Street which is perfect for doing this sort of work. Try and do test strips under red light conditions beforehand by laying a variety of objects, papers or surfaces on unexposed photographic paper and timing your exposures before fixing.
Anne Ferran uses objects she sources from museums as well as second-hand shops and makes large scale photograms that play with invisibility and anonymity.

Anne Ferran sometimes makes large scale images from old dresses.

Henri Foucault engages with images of the body, using photograms to create complex layered works.

Henri Foucault

Chemigram has also been with us for some time. There is an interview with Pierre Cordier the supposedly ‘father’ of the chemigram here.

Chemigrams are created with the use of developer and fixer chemicals, together with other non-photographic chemicals such as oils, acids, milk, paints etc. directly onto photographic paper. The chemicals react differently each time, so it takes a while to get used to controlling them.

Judith Lyons Chemigraph

Heather Oelklaus: Chemigraph

Chemigraphs do take quite a lot of control but as you can see above you can make very different looking images and of course if you are careful you can combine techniques by masking out some areas of the photographic paper when making photograms and then working into these areas with your various chemical solutions. 

Luminograms are made by directly drawing with light onto photographic paper. László Moholy-Nagy is probably the most well known exponent. Try using a small torch to draw with, again you might try mixing techniques. 

László Moholy-Nagy: Luminogram

Another way to think about drawing with light is simply that it consists of the casting of shadows. We have all played children's games by making rabbits and other creatures with our hands and watching their shadows appear on the bedroom wall at night, and some artists have returned to this very basic idea to make powerful work. 

The Shadows 1984: Christian Boltansky 

William Kentridge

Hans-Peter Feldmann Schattenspiel 'Shadow Play'

I saw Hans-Peter Feldmann's 'Schattenspiel' or 'Shadow Play' at the Venice Biennale a few years ago. It was totally gripping, but was done using the most basic technology. He had a long series of trestle tables with a row of old turntables set out in a line. On each turntable he had placed different figures, some found and some hand made, then had simply put light sources behind them and had set the turntables to slowly turn. The resulting shadows moved in and out of focus and interacted with each other. I intend to make some work in this way myself in the near future. 

Pre camera technologies.

One other area you might want to investigate is that of pre-film camera technology. For instance camera obscuras have been with us for thousands of years. 

I'm not sure cave painters ever used camera obscuras in this way but hopefully the point is made. 

You can turn any room into a camera obscura simply by putting sheets of black polythene over the windows and letting a pinpoint of light in. Here's how to do it. Once of course you have an image you can draw into it. 

Artists have for hundreds of years used camera obscuras and other devices of a similar nature, such as the Claude Glass which was for generating certain tonal values when working from landscape or the Camera Lucida which was often used for portrait drawing. 

You can still buy them. Link

And you always wondered how those old artists were able to capture a likeness. 

Not only can this area be one to open out drawing practice into much richer and wider territories, it can also be a way to bring back magic into your work. In their book, 'Technologies of Magic: A Cultural Study of Ghosts, Machines and the Uncanny', Potts and Scheer point to the continuing use of optical illusions to conjure up associations with an untouchable spirit world or  magic dimension. 

From the sublime

To the ridiculous

In order to capture photographic images on surfaces other than paper you may want to explore the use of 'Liquid Light'. There are various Photographic Emulsion solutions available, all of which operate very like black and white paper processing when working in a darkroom. Available at the moment are Rockland Liquid Light Photo Emulsion and Fotospeed LE30 Liquid Emulsion

both can be used to sensitise surfaces so that you can project images onto them. Helen Chadwick was the first artist I came across using this technique. 

Helen Chadwick: The Labours

Photographs of Chadwick’s naked body were superimposed with photographs of original objects from her past, in this case a pram. These are printed using liquid light techniques onto geometric forms that echoed the subject. The pram was meant to represent the artist at ten months old. 

Have fun, this is a rich area to mine.

Coda: December 2020

2,953 arced trails of the sun as it travelled across the sky: Regina Valkenborgh

The image above is a wonderful example of drawing with light and a perfect example of an art and science crossover. Regina Valkenborgh when a Master of Fine Art student at the University of Hertfordshire fitted a beer can with photographic paper and created a low-tech pinhole camera.  She then placed the can on a telescope at the university's Bayfordbury Observatory, trained the telescope at the sun and it was then left there for eight years. 

Now, the resulting photograph has been rediscovered and it may be the longest-exposure photo ever taken. The photograph shows the sun's journey through the sky since 2012; 2,953 arcs of light tracing its path as the sun rose and set. It shows us how the movement of the Earth in relation to the Sun changes each arced trail a capturing of time as well as space.

See also:

Drawing with light 2

Drawing with light 3

Working with stained glass

Drawing using fireworks

Neon

Drawing devices

Photography as an extension of drawing

Drawing and photography

Photography and frottage