Light Calligraphy

Every once in a while, you come across something so amazing that just blows your mind. In a world with every possible form of art, you may think that you have seen it all.

Well, you’re wrong.

Guys, meet Julien Breton, also known as Kaalam. This French guy can be seen waving and swinging torches and lights in streets, fields or in the dark.
Believe me, he’s not fooling around.
Breton is a calligraphy artist in profession.
And what’s unusual about his pieces?
He paints his letters with lights.
YES.
LIGHTS.

This guys somehow managed to bring two really amazing form of art together.  Calligraphy and Light art.
His method is fairly simple. He uses a camera with really long exposure time and then, with unbelievable precision and care, uses electric torches and lights to paint his characters. Since the camera has long exposure, only the movement and the trail of the lights are visible, not the person doing it.These are so perfect, every curve is so realistic, that it almost looks digitally mastered.
But, thry're not.

Breton’s fascination in calligraphy began in 2001. He is particularly fascinated by asian calligraphy and Arabic calligraphy. But since he doesn’t know Arabic, he invented a font that looks Arabic, but actually is French.
He also happens to be self taught.

Needless to say, this guy has won numerous awards.

SURGES

Photography: Essence Recaptured

Wikipedia defines photography as the art, science and practice of creating pictures by recording radiation on a sensitive medium.

That’s technical talk.
Photography as an art is a completely different thing. To me, it is the art of capturing momentary stories into one frame. The story of this form of art, or storytelling, if you may, began with the invention of camera itself.
Those days it was painstaking and a work that required patience. Days without memory chips, high resolution sensors, ultra modern lenses and photo correction softwares.  Photographers didn’t have the luxury of taking a thousand pictures and choosing the best one to display. They simply had ONE SHOT!!
And these days what do we have?
DSLRs, with owners with the burning desire to take a picture of themselves in front of the bathroom mirror.
Everyone has a DSLR and everyone is a photographer. Some of these people take the editing to a whole new level (read: horrible).
Most of the photographs you see these days (I'm talking about the tolerable ones) are either macros, or portraits or editing.  And to be honest, I don’t like these. It is easy to make a Macro look good. Most of them will. But hello? Where's the message in a photo of some grass and some more blurred grass just behind it?
Moving on to portraits, they are fine as long as the face of the subject reflects their story. Most of the portraits Photography these days are of girls smiling or looking away from the camera.
And editorial photography, to which, my opinion is- It’s not photography, its photo manipulation.Why people, WHY?

Photographers in the past had so less or no luxury. But were there not good works?
Of course there were, some even with greater aesthetics than the ones produced nowadays.
Across your life you seem to meet a lot of photographers. But it’s easy to distinguish the real ones from the "cameramans".

And I dedicate this post to such a talent.
His photographers are the ones that capture both the viewer’s eyes and their  imagination. Everyone can find a story in his photographs. Most are not Macros and very few are edited.
Yet they all seem to tickle your senses. Even the Macro's are have something to say....they are not just a subject in front of a blurred background.

Shamim Ashraf is truly an artist whose photographs turn moments into never ending adventures into your imagination; he captures your imagination like a storyteller captures the imagination of a curious child.

Don’t believe me?
Check them out for yourself....

To be an artist the first thing you need is imagination and an eye for the extraordinary.
And very often, extraordinary can be found in the simplest of things......
It’s how you look at the object that truly captures its essence.
So, cultivate your imagination, open up your eyes before you buy a camera.
Your eyes are stronger than the lens of your camera.
In a world where internet and money is making everything mainstream, it’s nice to see people like these once in a while.
Hats off to Shamim Ashraf and best wishes along the way.
if you'd like to receive updates on his photographs, subscribe to his facebook page, studio_zero.

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