Jul 06, 2015 8 Questions with: Darius Twin
Darren Pearson, also known as Darius Twin, is a Los Angeles resident who works as a Creative Director for Danger. After his normal work hours, he is an amazing light-illustrator who explores and takes pictures at night with his battery powered LED tool. He is known for illustrating skeletons, dinosaurs, food, plants, angels and aliens through his long exposure photography. Here is an 8-question interview to get to know the light-artist a little better and his process when creating his light-illustrations.
How would you describe your artwork?
They are ‘light-illustrations’ – It’s a photo and a drawing together. Instead of pen and paper, I use a nocturnal environment as my canvas and an LED light as my pen – Through use of long-exposure, the camera can capture where light moves – a similar example would be car-trails or star-trails photography. I play an active role in drawing within the environment. (Video of the process)
What are you currently working on?
My focus right now is to continue developing a battery powered LED tool designed for illustrating with light. It’s called the ‘Night-Writer‘ and I’m offering them in hand-made batches of ten on my website – I have 2 left as of this morning, I released them a few days ago.
Where do you find inspiration?
I find inspiration from travels, family, dreams, people, art, film, books, and curiosity.
What does a typical day look like for you?
Coffee in the morning, emails, editing photos, mailing orders, blog posts, social posts, tea at noon, location research, meetings with project collaborators, later in the day (but before traffic gets heavy in Los Angeles) – I’ll be driving somewhere I’ve researched to shoot – normally I start shooting around golden-hour and through twilight for my girlfriend’s fashion related content (Astrobandit), then I get to shoot my own ideas from blue-hour till 10 or 11pm and call it a day – Rinse, repeat.
How did you get involved with Light-art photography?
I got started with light-art after seeing an image of Pablo Picasso, he was illustrating with light in a LIFE magazine photo book – The image, shot in 1949 by Gjon Mili, made me very curious and it was one of those mysteries I had to get to the bottom of! So I asked a friend – a photographer by the name of Michael Brown explained long-exposures to me and we shot a few test images in my living room – after that I decided to buy a used DSLR camera, a cheap aluminum tripod, and some keychain LED lights.
What is the most challenging part when making Light-art photography?
Holding yourself ransom to the vision of your mind. Also known as not compromising. Try again and again – never give up – trial and error is an important process to go through.
What are you reading or listening to at the moment?
Been listening to an artist by the name of Rationale – if you’re referring to music. Steven King’s – 11/23/63 – for reading.
If you could give some advise to your teenage self, what would it be?
Invest in Apple, and go easy on your twin’s car when you take that drive to Santa Cruz – you will both crash and your lives will flash before your eyes.