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Ever Widening Circles

Thomas Bresson // Wikimedia

Arts

3 minute lesson

Painting with Light

Ever Widening Circles

We’ve all seen oil paintings- beautiful, sometimes old-fashioned, and a common technique. But have you ever thought about light painting? How would you even do that?

Well, artist Hannu Huhtamo from Helsinki, Finland, has embraced the medium as his own. The artist takes advantage of the polar night in Finland when the sun does not rise above the horizon for 51 days in winter and uses long exposure photography to capture incredible paintings of light and its surroundings.

Why It Matters

Not only are the pieces astounding, but Huhtamo has used his environment to his advantage; polar night has provided him with the time in darkness necessary to create such art.

Even if art doesn’t interest you, we can all take a lesson from Huhtamo to look to our surroundings for inspiration. What is unique about the place that you live in? How can you build off of that? And lastly, Huhtamo shows us that we can always bring a little light with us wherever we’re going.

Let's Talk About It
  1. What was your favorite piece that was shown in the video?
  2. What have you learned about your surroundings that people who live elsewhere may not know? What makes it special?
  3. What can you do to show off that unique aspect of your environment; how can you take advantage of it?

Great Big Story

Great Big Story is a global media company devoted to cinematic storytelling. Headquartered in New York, with a bureau in London, our studios create and distribute micro-docs and short films, as well as series for digital, social, TV and theatrical release.

Thank You

Thank you to Erin Murphy, an EWCed staff writer, for this contribution to EWCed’s touchstones! If you’d like to contribute to EWCed, please, let us know.

Citations

“‘Darkness Is My Canvas, Light Is My Brush’.” YouTube. Great Big Story, 11 Jan. 2017. Web. 12 Jan. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhdMwgvU2EI>.

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