After receiving her design diploma from the university of applied sciences and arts in dortmund, Helen Sobiralski now lives in berlin and works as a freelance photographer. She creates incredible surreal worlds and pictures.
In 1889, artist Georges Demeny created the first known light painting photograph, “Pathological Walk From in Front”, by attaching incandescent bulbs to his assistant’s clothing and taking a long exposure. The technique was groundbreaking and became the touchstone for 125 years of unique and compelling works of art. Photographers have since added colored lights and performed deft physical feats to capture interesting images, but the technology involved has remained remarkably similar to what Demeny used in that first image. Until today.
Pixelstick reads images created in Photoshop (or the image editor of your choice) and displays them one line at a time, creating endless possibilities for abstract and/or photorealistic art. Taking this one step further, Pixelstick can increment through a series of images over multiple exposures, opening up light painting to the world of timelapse, and allowing for animations the likes of which have never before seen.
Pixelstick consists of 198 full color RGB LEDs inside a lightweight aluminum housing. Pixelstick’s brain, a small mounted box, reads images from an SD card and displays them, one line at a time. Each LED corresponds to a single pixel in the image. The images themselves can be from 1 to 198 pixels tall and many thousands of pixels wide. The handle is perpendicular and has a secondary aluminum sleeve, allowing pixelstick to spin freely. Pixelstick uses 8 AA batteries. Throughout testing we’ve used Sanyo Eneloop and Amazon rechargeable to great success, never requiring more than one set for a long night’s shooting.