Skatepark light painting with star trails
All images courtesy of Ben Matthews

We’ve had our share of articles about light painting here on Environmental Graffiti bu

Skatepark Photo:
Skatepark light painting with star trails
All images courtesy of Ben Matthews

We’ve had our share of articles about light painting here on Environmental Graffiti but what happens when alien forces grip hold of their lightsabers and descend on a skatepark? Strange shapes and creatures suddenly emerge in twilight, captured only by those skilful enough to make their fading outlines and mischief come to light. Here’s skatepark fun as you’ve never seen it before.

An earlier stage of the first image with surreal looking surroundings:
Skatepark 2 Photo:

Photographer Ben Matthews is a UK-based dentist by day and a light artist by night who frequently seems to have alien encounters at his local skatepark. Over the years, he’s become very skilled at capturing them on film as aliens are shy creatures. For the very first image, for example, he had to use a 12 ½ minute exposure. His images are not retouched but various ones may be pasted together. He explains the first image: “It’s actually a composite of images, which gives me a bit more flexibility in terms of taking time to get portions of it right.”

No aliens yet but a strange creature at twilight:
Skatepark 3 Photo:

Ah, the angel has landed:
Angel Photo:

Fleeing from the light monster:
Photo:

Says Ben about how he took the picture: “It is a long exposure of 70 seconds, but with one burst of flash as the curtain closes – the remote flash is visible beneath me.”

The alien’s first victim:
Crime scene Photo:

They’re going wild!
Skatepark 4 Photo:

Says Ben about this one:

“A test run, utilising multiple new effects, seeing what I could do, and wanting to do more. I have a new toy! Blue light streaks created using a “blue accent neon tube” (a la pimp my ride) connected to a 12v battery and a big stick of wood, all cunningly made more holdable by the copious use of duck tape!”

Light spiders invading. Or are they octopi?
Photo:

Here, they simply turned into stripes:
Stripes Photo:

A vinyl disk? A UFO? A giant jug? We love it:
Light jug Photo:

And after the skatepark? The aliens moved on to the playground:
Photo:

For those who are curious about how to do light paintings, Ben has filmed himself during one of his projects, er, encounters. Here’s the link.

All the images are best viewed large, so make sure to visit Ben Matthews’ Flickr photostream – you’ll discover a new detail in every picture. We love it and hope that Ben will soon be able to spend less time on teeth and even more on photography.

With special thanks to Ben Matthews for making his photographs available!

We’ll even throw in a free album.