These fascinating images are the result of a photographer using LED lights to track his climbing routes up sheer rock faces and mountain hikes.
27-year-old Luke Rasmussen takes to sky-high ridges across the USA under the cover of darkness so he can use the lights to turn his journeys into colorful patterns.
He records the routes through a series of long-exposure images taken from the foot of each rock face.
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“I wanted to capture the passage of time as I moved up a rock face, flowing from one hold to the next,” says Rasmussen. “I wanted a way to visualize the line that exists in a climber’s mind as he pieces together the natural features of the wall.
“I wanted to be able to illuminate the motion that I experience while climbing. And I think I’ve begun to do just that.
Rasmussen, who is from Las Vegas, started rock climbing at the age of 11 before he even got his hands on his very first camera.
“I certainly enjoyed taking photos and the process of photography, but I knew there was something more that I could get out of it. I knew there was a way that I could use photography as a tool to capture the ‘passage of time in a single moment’ that I was so fascinated by.
“So, I started experimenting with longer exposures. This is where I truly found a passion for photography.”
Rasmussen describes his photography as “showing the motion of the climb”, capturing his individual movements through colorful, intricate courses of light.
On each climb, he shoots 17 separate 30-second RAW photos of himself—along with 78 separate 30-second exposures of the night sky to capture the star trails. The images are then stacked and edited in Photoshop.
“My photography is an attempt to capture time frozen in a moment rather than a moment frozen in time,” says Rasmussen. “The photo is a snapshot of the moment. But, what it’s not is a snapshot of time. Time is that stacking up of moments, the aggregate of every moment past, present, and future.
“Traditional photography does not allow us to capture that. My photography is an attempt to do so. It is an attempt, in some small way, to capture the passage of time and freeze it in a single moment.”
(WATCH the slideshow below)
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