Comfortable with long exposure photography, Vitor Schietti decided he wanted to learn more, to push himself to experiment further. After discovering the work of light painting photo artists such as Eric Staller, Lightmark, and Brian Hart – amongst others – he began to make his own light paintings. The results are a dazzling series of images titled Impermanent Sculptures.

Schietti’s light paintings – or, as he calls them, light sculptures – are set in beautiful and dramatic land- and seascapes. Ocean, waterfall, sierra: a classical photo of any one of them would be impressive already. Schietti, however, creates ribbons of brightness that trip and burst across their majestic backdrops. The pictures are not only gorgeous, but full of energy and ebullience too.

As effortless as the images may appear at first sight, they are actually meticulously constructed. Schietti creates his sculptures using a complex combination of fireworks, strobes and flashlights, captured using tripods, ND filters, multiple long exposures and blended in Photoshop. This high degree of planning makes the seeming spontaneity of the results even more rewarding, enabling Schietti to work on a larger scale and to create even more impressive imagery.

The effervescent sparks of the pictures are more than just aesthetic play, though. While he suggests that the images should be interpreted and explored freely by the viewer, Schietti originally based his work on the “fundamental myths and symbols of humanity”, his sculptures pointing to “something prior to life itself… An impulse, a primordial force.”

All images (C) Vitor Schietti.