About this limited edition photograph:

The light painted photograph “The Cut” was created at The Cut on Dry Run Creek in Decorah, Iowa.

The Cut is a concrete drainage ditch made in the late 1940s as a flood control solution for Dry Run Creek. Highway 52 passes overhead on a concrete arch bridge. The Cut is a popular place for kids to slide down on their backs when enough water flows, creating a concrete slide perfect for wearing holes in your cut off shorts!

I used a powerful spotlight to skim light across the surface of the limestone cliff faces to bring out the texture in the stone. I used the same spotlight and a blue colored gel filter to shine colored light onto the arch bridge, and I used a Wicked Lasers Arctic Spyder laser to project a blue laser line onto the edge of the bridge. The circle and fan of sparks were created by spinning 0000 steel wool on fire, throwing sparks 25 feet in every direction. 

I placed my Canon T3i camera on a tripod and used a long exposure of 335 seconds to create this photograph.

This photograph came off my camera as-is, and involved zero post-processing or Photoshop.

Nocturnal Designs © 2015.