Enlightened Souls is an awesome light painting project by a French photographer Fabrice Wittner which he started in May 2011 in Christchurch, New Zealand. For this project, Fabrice used a special technique that combines light painting and real-sized stencils.
Fabrice Wittner: ‘I started light painting with a good fellow of mine Herv? Baccara aka Dr Gosh, a graffiti artist. He was painting while I was taking the photos. He first came up the idea of using stencils and we developed the technique together, both working on stencils and the pictures. We arrived to conclusive results. Like in street art, the technique consists in painting through a stencil. A photograph instead of the wall.’
Fabrice Wittner: ‘In 2010, I moved to New Zealand and Dr Gosh moved to Vietnam. I spent a year there after what I joined Dr Gosh in Vietnam for a common project. I had more time than expected so I decided to work on a new series. For the Enlightened Souls I used real sized stencils that I chose to put in the streets of Christchurch and Hanoi. But not for the same reasons. The first part, Christchurch Quake was created to commemorate the victims of the big earthquake occurred the 22 February 2011. The plan was to offer some prints to the Council, it was the only donation I could afford then. But now that the project got some exposure I’m thinking about organizing a fundraising by selling limited prints by auction. The Country Mice project was more to show the difference between people living in the big cities and people from remote places in the country side. Then I put kids from the mountains down in Hanoi streets, a place they will maybe never see.’
