Page 55 - The Peorian Vol 3 Issue 1 Winter

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thePeorian.com
Below are the Leunigs answers to
questions posed by The Peorian,
which are in boldface:
FROM BOTH:
1. When we’re not shooting
photographs we are pursuing
the things we are passionate
about, which are family, friends,
community and arts advocacy.
We truly believe that creativity
and innovation, the foundations
of the arts, hold the keys to
finding solutions. The arts give
us the opportunity to see through
the eyes of others and offer
fresh perspectives. Encouraging
involvement in the arts lets
everyone express themselves in
their own fashion that feeds their
own sense of accomplishment
and enjoyment.
2. What people don’t know
about life painting photography
is that the way we do light
paintings differs from other
photographer’s techniques.
Many of them do only one timed
exposure. We set the camera on a
tripod and for the next 4-8 hours
take hundreds of exposures. We
capture tiny bits of light as we
paint the scene with our LED
flashlights. Once we have all
those exposures, we return to the
computers and use our digital
palette to recreate the scene into
our light painting art. We spend
anywhere from four hours to 80
hours to make one single light
painting. The end result is closer
to the feelings we have about our
subject rather than just a record
of the moment.
3. Our passion besides
photography is our pets. We
never had children, so the lives
we are closest to in addition
to our friends are of the furry
four-footed variety. We are
continuously attuned to their
communication skills and have
learned much through translating
their language into our own.
4. Why Peoria? In our eyes
there is no better place for us to
live than Peoria, so we put as
much energy as we can afford
to share and care for into our
city. Doug traveled the world on
business and Eileen lived in other
states, but Peoria is a great place
to call home.
5. In 2014 we’ll be traveling
to Laos and southern China,
working more in video,
continuing our light painting,
and exploring new forms of
personal artistic expression. One
project we will put a lot of our
energies toward is Rockazoids™,
which we started 15 years ago.
Now is the time to share. On
the arts advocacy front, we’ll be
working on Ignite Peoria, a 3-day
creativity festival at the Peoria
Civic Center in August 2014.
Continued on page 56
These photos show some of the special photography done by Doug and Eileen Leunig,
using a technique called Light Painting.