Light Painting – Creative Photography with moving Lights – The new Book on Long Exposure, Night Photography and Light Painting
by Sven Gerard
With a foreword by Denis Smith.
Impressive works of art made of light, created out of nothing. By drawing traces of light in combination with skilful illumination, a scene becomes visible that previously only existed in the imagination of the light artist. There are almost no limits to creativity in light art photography.
The reader is familiarised with the subject in an understandable way. From the necessary equipment to the search for suitable locations, the presentation of various techniques, good planning and taking the pictures, all important aspects are explained in detail. The book is rounded off with numerous impressive photographs.
About Sven Gerard – Light Painting Artist and Photographer
Sven Gerard has been photographing with great passion for 40 years now. In addition to photographically exploring abandoned places, he has been intensively involved in light painting for 10 years. He passes on his extensive knowledge in his blog “Lichtkunstfoto.de” and other online publications. His book “Lightpainting – Creative Photography with Moving Light” was published in 2023. In this comprehensive non-fiction book, working with moving light is explained in an understandable and detailed way and the knowledge is deepened in practical exercises. An English edition of the book is in preparation. Sven Gerard also organises light painting workshops and exhibitions and events, such as “Light Up Berlin”.
Sven Gerard was born in 1969. He lives in Berlin with his partner and has a grown-up son.
A look inside the book
Buy the book (english edition) – Order directly from the publisher
Sven Gerard – Light Painting – Creative Photography with moving Lights
Otherwise, the book is available everywhere in bookshops, online or in the shop around the corner.
From the idea to the book
About two years ago, I had the idea of summarising my knowledge and experience in the areas of long exposure, night photography and light painting in a book. Even though I now have a lot of experience in writing articles for my blog and other online publications, writing a book is not an easy, everyday task.
Once I had thought about what I wanted to tell the reader and had worked out a structure, I started writing. I decided on a format (17 x 24 cm) and created a template for the OpenOffice Writer. Directories, cross-references, indexes etc. are generated automatically. This saves a lot of work. The biggest disadvantage of OpenOffice Writer is that images and graphics cannot be integrated cleanly. You can’t necessarily expect that from a word processing programme. Once all the chapters had been written, some friendly people agreed to scrutinise the content for errors.
Publisher or self-publisher
While I was writing, I often thought about how I wanted to publish my book. A publisher certainly offers some advantages, but in the end I decided in favour of self-publishing. The advantages clearly outweigh the disadvantages for me. I alone decide how the book is designed and I decide when it is published and how long it will be available. A publisher would design the cover and the content, even if I wouldn’t like it at all. And if the first edition of 1000 copies is sold out, there may not be another edition. The book would then no longer be available.
In return, I was forced to take on all the tasks that are normally done by the publisher myself. This includes editing and proofreading, typesetting the entire book, designing the cover and creating a printable file. Another disadvantage is that the book is distributed as a “book on demand”. This means that a copy of the book is only printed once someone has ordered it. However, if demand is high enough, retailers such as Amazon will keep a certain amount of stock in order to be able to dispatch the book immediately.
Typesetting and layout
I used the DTP programme Scribus for typesetting and layout. Scribus can export a print-ready PDF file. As I had little contact with DTP programmes before, it took me some time to familiarise myself with the software, which involved a few setbacks. Once I had created suitable templates for normal pages, directories etc. and familiarised myself with the many functions of the programme, I made good progress with the layout and typesetting. Overall, the amount of work involved was very high.
Conclusion
If I had known beforehand how much work this book would require, I probably wouldn’t have started writing it. But now I am very happy and a little proud that I can finally hold the book in my hands. I hope that it will be helpful and entertaining for many lightpainters and those who want to become one.
I will soon start translating the book into English. As I now have a lot of experience with typesetting and layout, the amount of work involved should be a little less.
Good light at all times
Sven