I got the honour of being the first artist on the cover of the new magazine 6229.
This an innovative and bilingual magazine on photography and video in Québec created by Lozeau.
Get your copy here: https://www.lozeau.com/en-CA/products/accessories/books/6229/
When did you become a light painter? In 1997, I left Montreal for Tokyo. At the time, I was already doing a little light painting and creative photography. And then I had a revelation during the flight. I said to myself: “I’m a light painter ! ” I had never heard the term before. People talked instead about photographers who were doing light painting. So I realized that light painting was an art form, and that photography was what supported it. In this instance, the photo is a medium, a canvas. You paint in space, and then it is imprinted on the canvas. From that day on, I stopped showing my traditional photos. It was a dramatic change.
You planned to visit the land of the rising sun for two weeks and ended up staying for 10 years. What influence has Japanese culture had on your work? An enormous influence! It was a major transformation… In fact, Japan was the voyage within myself, getting in touch with all the subtleties of my being. Being more rested and settled, because that’s how the Japanese are. In New York, I ex- plored the underground, the darkness. In Tokyo, it was contact with beauty and subtlety instead. It was years before I managed to do things people found beautiful, maybe five years of personal research and work.
What is the element of the unknown when painting with light? In school, we learn to control everything, but I believe that at a certain point, you have to move beyond control. There is a creative richness in letting go. It’s when I let go completely that I achieve the most extra- ordinary results.
Your TRANSIT project was carried out in front of an audience, in conjunction with dancers. What sort of pre- paration goes into that sort of performance? Since we had never worked together before, we met beforehand. We spent a few hours moving and developing ideas. We created a structure, a sort of map with scenes and the number of photos we would do for each one. That evening during the performance, there was a structured portion and an improvised portion, and plenty of new elements, including the audience and music. The goal was also to allow room for spontaneity.
Talk to us about your new technique of light painting, the kata? It’s an idea I’ve had for a long time. Naturally, in moving swords of light through space, you end up with a combination of dance and martial arts. kata, in light pain- ting, is a somewhat freestyle form, a lot freer than nor- mal. You go with your intuition, the energy and the emo- tion of the moment. If you work with music, you can draw inspiration from it to create movement. For me, it was a major victory that people were interested in this project and that it was published on blogs, because I did it alone, at home, with my camera on a tripod. It was the exact opposite of the Red Bull project, where we had a large production team.
Where is light painting at in Quebec? It’s still really new here. I gave lots of workshops when I came back to Montreal five years ago. No one, or virtually no one, was doing light painting. Now people are starting to do it more and to use it in advertising. It’s fun to see it catch on and develop, but it’s hard to localize the art in Quebec. We have become so international, all connected through the Internet.
RAPId FIRe :
A photo you are particularly proud of: I think in each session of light painting that I’ve published, there has been a victory. The victory of having done something spontaneously and being impressed by the result.
If you weren’t a photographer, you would be: In science, absolutely.
Preparation: Before a shoot, I spend a lot of time visualizing, sometimes weeks. I immerse myself in my project. Favorite piece of equipment: even more so than the camera, it’s the computer! I spend a tremendous amount of time communicating with people, sharing, reading and discovering.
