Directed by Life magazine photographer Gjon Mili in 1944.

Gjon Mili, 1904 – 1984

Engineer and self-taught photographer who was the first to use electronic flashes and stroboscopic lights to create photographs 

 Since the late 1930s, his photographs of dance, athletics, and music and theatr performances have astonished and delighted millions of viewers, revealing the beautiful intricacy and graceful flow of movement too rapid or too complex for the eye to discern. His portraits of artists, musicians, and other notables are less visually spectacular, but equally masterful.

In 1939, Mili became a freelance photographer working for LIFE. In the course of more than four decades, literally thousands of his pictures were published by LIFE as well as other publications.
Gjon Mili is the one photographer who has formed our contemporary visual understanding of movement, both in the direct example of his pictures and in the influence his work has had on all action photographers who have come after him.

light painting photographer known for his striking images at LIFE, been described as a pioneer in illustrating time as a pioneer in stroboscopic photography. Hailed for capturing sequences of human actions in a single image by using a rapid series of successive electronic flashes and stroboscopic light.

pioneer of stroboscopic photography

distinctive aesthetic style. High in contrast and razor-sharp, Mili’s pictures often reveal athletes, dancers and other performers at moments of peak action. He sometimes used a rapid series of flashes to trace the evolution of a motion or gesture. His most famous images feature brightly rim-lit subjects against a background of pure black.

     (With Double Exposure)

Erwin Olaf