Long Exposures : Sleeping Couples

Long Exposures Reveal Movements of Sleeping Couples

A German Photographer Paul Schneggenburger created this photo series, entitled "The Sleep of the Beloved", in which he features the movements and motions of loving couples as they sleep.  For each image, the photographer arranges a bed in his studio apartment, creates a backdrop of black sheets, lights some candles, and leaves for the night.  He sets up a long exposure on his camera that is open for six hours, from midnight to 6am, which documents the interactions and distances that couples experience throughout a good night's sleep.

I think this is a fantastic idea, and really works well with my ideas.  This series is not fully about dancers, which is what is my main focus, although there is a big connection to dance from the photographer and about the series, (below) but I thought it was great to include.  This is perfect for the 'body' and 'body movements' which were my exact ideas to begin with, looking at how the body moves in certain situations and capturing the movements from start to finish.  I would like to try something like this out in the future.  I works great for my visual style of working with the body and how the body moves.  I also am fascinated at how we move unconsciously, and what controls our body, this is research I have looked into in my Mixed Media project where I am looking at connections between the Body & Mind, how the two connect and interact together and how we move unconsciously.

Schneggenburger questions:

"What happens to lovers while they are sleeping?  Is it a nocturnal lovers' dance, maybe a kind of unaware performed tenderness, or does one turn their back on each other?"

Without having an outside observer, sleeping couples can't really know how they interact while they rest.  This project captures the blurry dance of arms, legs and bodies as couples unconsciously, and often intimately, move throughout the night.  Some people overlap, merging in the middle as a white blob of tangled bodies, while others remain quite separate, almost sedentary as they enjoy their restful slumber.

This is a newly created series and was held in an exhibition on March 8, 2013.  I think it is exactly what I need within my research and am so glad that I found it.  The images are so peaceful and show how different we can all be.

Looking at all of the images above, what I think is great about this series, apart from the fact it is exactly what I was working with, body, mind, movements and blur motions, it also shows how each couple is completely different whilst sleeping, which in a way proves a couple personality.  There is so much I can work on from here.

I would love to try this out, and if I had found it earlier I probably would have.  I am still working with a dancer and will hopefully create a similar effect to this series, but I will take into consideration his six hour exposure as obviously, with a dancer it wouldn't need to be that long.  I look forward to looking into more long exposures with people.