Janne Parviainen was born in 1980 in Finland. For the past fifteen years he has been a very popular photographer, and for the last three years he has been dealing with light painting. He also is a painter mostly using oil colors on glass as his medium. The reason he started light painting was by accident. Once when he was taking a photo a night of a street he bumped into his camera causing it to take a picture. The street light caused a streak across the photo thus leading Janne to discover light art. Janne uses a DSLR camera for his photos as well as a tripod, he says this is necessary in order to keep the camera steady or that sometimes its easy to just set the camera on the ground. For the light source he uses LEDs or simply a flashlight. For the most part besides his personal website he says that he prefers to post his photos on flickr and that is where he gets the most online “traffic”. The way his light painting is done is by using a DSLR camera and making it so it takes long exposure pictures. He then moves his light source through the “frame” of the picture leaving behind a drawing. Sometimes Janne involves physical drawings such a chalk or permanent marker as well as the light drawings in a photograph. A must for Janne he says is that after taking the long exposure picture that photo is never run through a program such as photo shop. When asked by an interview why he does light painting he simply said: “Light painting is the most liberating form of art I have encountered; it sums up so many good things in one package that I could never let go of it anymore!”.
