About this picture
Kim: Surrounded by trees, feeling somehow protected from the cold wind. The forest at night can be a scary place but also a magical one for those who venture. A unique scenery we could not witness if it wasn’t for our deep desire to create.
Eric: It’s not that we enjoy the cold that much, right? But again, it’s about pushing ourselves to accomplish something we didn’t even know we would be capable of. A lot of our work comes from constraints, and this is no exception. We usually travel to exotic places during Wintertime but with a two-year travel restriction, we started to experiment more and more with snowy nights in the woods and even though it is not comfortable, it turned out to be a very enjoyable and fun experience. Being deep in the forest at night in winter is something we would never do if it wouldn’t be for this continual pursuit of creating art in the wilds. From a technical point of view, we figured out many tricks to ease our nights, allowing us to create exactly what we were looking for. On my side, that means keeping the same settings for the whole night (they never change when I’m skipping the blue hour), and having huge mittens in which I hide my remote trigger and snacks. For Kim, the preparation involves breathwork, many layers of clothing and of course, warm boots with electric heating socks.
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About the Night Reflection Ten series
This series is the result of a creative process that has been evolving over the past 8 years. Crafting light by hand to create imagery that magnifies reality in a single exposure is at the core of our projects. These outdoor tube light-painting creations testify to the importance of two things that inspire my photography journey: a love for light-painting as an artistic expression and a love for landscapes that evoke the vastness, mystery, and beauty of nature. Each image is the result of a long exposure during which Kim, a contemporary dancer, and my creative partner, stays still while I move the light behind her. Combining in a singular way light-painting and landscape photography, the process looks like a performance of dancing light and human stillness in the silence of the night.
Winterland. This chapter is the coldest of them all. It is a testimony of us trying to push ourselves to create things we didn’t think we would be able to. Winter can be a symbol of isolation, solitude, harshness and dormancy, but also sublime beauty, magic and resilience. While others would normally get warm inside during long winter nights, we decided to explore and create. Creating in the cold is a whole different type of experience that brings particular challenges. More than ever we need to rely on our years of experience and our preparation to make quick decisions and create the best images we can with the minutes we have at hand. Time is limited not by the usual constraints of the blue hour, but mostly by cold temperature and the limitations it imposes on our bodies & minds. Needless to say that losing dexterity when manipulating small objects is a real challenge. Nonetheless, that whole process stimulates us to get stronger and more adaptable both physically & psychologically.
Acting as a purpose to travel, our projects keep us learning and moving forward. Since 2015, our journey through outdoor tube light-painting has been giving us the opportunity to push our limits and stay outdoors for long hours through the cold, the wind, the mosquitoes, and other unpredictable challenges to experience, create, and capture unique moments of magic after sunset, seeking to inspire others to go explore and play with lights. Just as every trace of light made by hand is unique and impossible to replicate, so is every night sky we capture. As we shape traces of light and partially reveal the beauty of our environment, we try to create a slightly altered perspective of reality where reflection is implied.
