Chronophotography

PJ Reptilehouse's photographs explore the spectra of light and dark, figurative and abstract, simple and complex. Capturing the human form with constantly evolving custom strobe lights, he creates unique kaleidoscopic images. Around the year 2000, a breakthrough in LED technology made LEDs a practical light source. After building an LED-based strobe light for another purpose, PJ started emulating the classic chronophotography of Muybridge and Marey and the strobe photography of Harold Edgerton. But that was just a starting point for the evolution of a technique. By building his own strobe lights and synchronizing them with motion-controlled camera platforms-a device he calls the Strobo-Dingus-PJ composed complex and singular images using the human form. The images are captured inside the camera with long exposures, making each one unique. The images are not assembled with photo-editing software.