With traditional photography either natural light or strobes are used to illuminate the subject which is captured with a single image by the camera.
Light painting is a unique and complex method of photographing the subject using special lights to make multiple images of the subject. Each image lights a specific area of the subject in a way that is not possible with any other technique. All of these individual images are then blended together to create the final image. It’s quite common for a final image to be made up of 100 individual exposures.
Mark Bortz is a Master Photographer and one of only a handful of photographers in the world that creates photographic art with Light Painting.
To get an idea of the complexity of a light painting here are some videos showing all of the layers in a final image.