LightBomber has been out for a little while now, and the best part for us has been watching the public gallery.  Every day after the sun goes down you’ll probably have a hard time carrying on a conversation with either of us as we sit with our eyes just centimeters away from our iPhone screens, rabidly refreshing the public gallery to see what people are creating with LightBomber.  We jump for joy whenever we see something new from a new place – New Zealand, Norway, Dallas…and beyond.

And we’re learning so much!  From the classic “swirly” light shots down to the shots where the user has clearly learned the joy and thrill of a stable camera and an unstable light.  As new photos come in, other users can “heart” them, and the “most hearted” shots end up in the ‘Popular’ gallery, which ends up being a community-curated “Greatest Hits” of sorts.  To celebrate that gallery and the brilliant work our LightBombers are doing, we’re going to post photos from it every few weeks.  Here are your Top 5 LightBombs, round ONE.

If you don’t have LightBomber yet, get it here.  Oh yeah, a few updates:  Tap To Focus is coming in the next update, and we’ve also added an FAQ in the App Store description.  The next update will also feature an iPad compatible version.  As always, follow @LightBomberApp on twitter and have fun!

1.  “Nacho” by AG.i.am (above)

This one is all about the colors.  We’re not sure where they got the light that is responsible for these swirls, but we want one.  Now.

2.  “New Years” by Senor MRI

Shot as the ball dropped on New Years eve on a rooftop in Brooklyn by yours truly (Ryan) through a sweet little kaleidoscope provided by our buddy Josh.

3.  “Eu Stein” by Senor MRI

Alright, so MRI shooters may have to be DQ’d from this list going forward.  We can’t help that we love this thing so much!  We shoot with it constantly.  This one was created by taking a quick open-move the camera-close shot on this scene from the movie Weird Science (no, really), which is one of the most underrated 80′s John Hughes comedies.

4.  “High Life” by Senor MRI

Alright, that’s enough.  Get these guys off the top 5.  This one was taken on a night of music creation with none other than Oceans In Space, who shares my obsession with High Life…and weird little ape stuffed animals.

5.  “BroBar” by TinaBallz

Ah, lasers in the club.  We get the feeling that clubs with crazy lightshows are going to be the inspiration for many a LightBomb going forward.

6.  MRI’s PICK:  “Snow” by geirrosset

This one is truly mindblowing.  Shot in Norway, we’re going to guess the camera was stable while shooting out a window at a blizzard.  The streaks of snow through the streetlight give the most beautiful effect, like a kind of thread or spider’s silk.  Seriously brilliant shot from a person with only ONE photo in their profile.  We hope they shoot more!

We’re saying it.  Officially.  LightBomber, The light painting iPhone app that we developed, is OUT.  It’s in the App Store now.  Go buy it.  We’re so excited to finally be able to announce officially.  We even got a nice push from Gizmodo today when they picked us as “App of The Day”.

However, this is just the beginning folks.  We’re in this one for the long haul and we want to be right there with you guys to help you become light painters.  So if you have questions, hit us up in real time via twitter (@lightbomberapp) and via email (mrilightpainting@gmail.com).  We know this thing won’t succeed without your valuable feedback.  We’re listening.

Check out a few photos from the app below, and make sure to come back to learn about functionality enhancements, new features (seriously we have some CRAZY stuff in mind) and light painting tips.  In fact, here is a quick tutorial video to help you out.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks to everyone who put up with our excited jabbering about this thing over the years, and thanks to Nascent for building this wonderful wonderful thing.

Brought the booth out for a quick holiday event at the Museum of Modern Art on Monday night.  If you are looking for your photos from that night, you can grab them right here on the MRI Flickr.

We had a great time hobnobbin’ with the Museum’s Junior Associates (basically “The Cool Kids” of the art patronage world) and if the line outside the booth was any indication, it seems like they had a great time with us.

Not going to lie, I think we “brought it” a little extra hard because we were in the company of some very discerning art enthusiasts.  There were some brilliant ideas flyin’ around.  The lights looked great, everyone was in their holiday best, and after 2 short hours, we had a great collection of photos.  Check out a few highlights right below, with the rest on our Flickr.

Wow.  When we did one of these posts last year, we could have never guessed how mind-blowingly awesome this year was going to be.  It was by far our busiest yet, and we can’t wait to keep growing with all the wonderful people we’ve met.  If we’ve worked with you this year or if you’ve supported us in any way, please accept a huge, glowing THANK YOU from us.  We love this and we will obviously keep doing it, but we would be nothing without our friends, clients, supporters, homies, business partners, acquantainces, associates, relatives, interns and families.

What happened this year?  No, really.  We’re asking.  It all happened so fast we’re having trouble remembering.  Ok, deep breaths.  Let’s recap:  We did photo booths.  So many.  Not counting the many Bar/Bat Mitzvahs we did, there were Booths in Vegas, Seattle (Bieber!), New York and beyond.  We even found a way to incorporate ZOMBIES with the DEADBOOTH.  When we weren’t doing booths, we were developing LIGHTBOMBER, our lightpainting iPhone app, which we literally just submitted to the Apple store.  2 weeks, people.

With our prototype, we lightbombed with friends:  Live at The Loft, Twin Cities Brightest and The Canon Logic all showed us new dimensions to our idea that we would have never discovered without them.

What else?  Oh yeah!  We did our first big commercial job for GloBrush and saw our work in print!  After that we covered The Weeknd, MF Doom, Gayngs, King Fantastic, Odd Future and more with our Light Up Playlist.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, we even found some time to make some film-devouring monsters for a gallery show.

Does that cover it?  Probably not, yet here we sit at the end of the year all happy and proud and more than a little ready for a break.  So everyone, from the bottom of our lit-up hearts, have a happy holiday and a fantastic new year.  We’ll see you in January for the release of LIGHTBOMBER!

Love,

Michelle + Ryan

p.s.  if you are looking for photos from the MoMA event, stay tuned we’ll have them up tonight.

We’re thrilled to announce that starting this Friday, we’ll be displaying work in a show called “Tricked: An Exhibition of Special Effects” at the CultureFix Gallery in Manhattan.

When we got word that we would be involved, we decided to shoot some new analog material.  You know, really make some “Art”.  Well, the universe had other plans, apparently.  Roll after roll of film full of lofty, world-expansive and heartbreakingly honest (Art!) material kept coming up blank.  3 rolls of film, nothing on them.

So, with time running out on a cold night, we felt defeated.  We had pushed ourselves too hard and weren’t ready to lose another set of work.  As a solution, we just decided to have fun.  So we grabbed the digital (being that film was clearly cursed), a few LEDs and got to work…  making monsters.  Monsters!

It just goes to show you.  Don’t try and make art.  Just make monsters.  Check out one sample at the top of this post (his name is Leon), and if you are in the NYC area, come on out to the opening on Friday December 16th.  7:30 PM at CultureFix – 9 Clinton Street (between Stanton and Houston), Lower East Side NYC.

Been a great weekend out here in Seattle.  We came out Friday night to set up the booth at OABG/Microsoft’s holiday party.  Drinks were flowing, good times were had, and someone brought a Bieber cutout.  Bieber happens.  Thanks to everyone who jumped in front of the booth (especially the Bumbys, pictured below).  If you were at the OABG holiday party and you would like your photos, you can grab them on the MRI Flickr page.  Thanks so much guys and Happy Holidays!

We’ve already expressed our love for The Canon Logic numerous times.  We’ve written about them.  They’ve written about us.  We won’t overstate our love for them.  All we want you to do is check out their Daytrotter Session.  This was recorded while the band was stomping around the U.S. on their recent tour.  It is somehow a fantastic intro to their music and an amazingly satisfying hat-tip for longtime fans at the same time.

We’ve been working hard lately…18 hour days…international trips to finalize our app…events up the wazoo.  It’s all great, and there is no other way we’d like to spend our time, but in the midst of all that it sure is nice to sit back and listen to some music that your friends made.  Enjoy.

It’s no secret that MF Doom is one of our favorite artists, ever.  So we’re pretty geeked at this 90 minute lecture/q&a he did at the Red Bull Music Academy.  In it, he candidly discusses every aspect of his career to date while wearing his mask.  Thats all that needs to be said.  Check out the video below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Friday night we set up a booth for our friends The Amoralists, a theatre company who put on an epic Halloween party at the Gershwin Hotel to celebrate a 10-week run of their play HotelMotel.  They called it Hotel Halloween.  Our booth was in the potentially haunted room (with a bed!) where the play took place, The Canon Logic played a brilliant set, and the constant flow of cheap drinks made for some hilarious photos.  Kind of a mix of the DEADBOOTH and our booth at The Canon Logic Halloween Party two years ago.

Those rock em sock em robot costumes…oh man.  Hope you like the photos.  As usual all the photos from the night are up on the MRI Flickr.  We also did some Lightbombing.  Stay tuned for those and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

"Richie"

When we got the invite to do a booth at an event for Gakwer, io9 and THE WALKING FREAKING DEAD, we lost our minds.  There’s no better combination of nerd factors for us.  We’re zombie SPAZZES, so when they said they wanted a zombie themed booth, we were happily all over it.  We shot photos of our zombie guests using homemade filters (saran wrap, ripped cardboard, colored gels) and then ran them through some more filters to look like archival news photos, trashed news footage, security camera snapshots, and photos that look like they had been through hell and back.  We also did a little light painting, to create glowing eyes and unnatural, horrific lighting.

Then, we printed them, tore them, roughed them up with sandpaper and even included a snippet of a zombie story we had written that could be assembled to create a big story about how the zombie apocalypse started at io9′s UNDEAD CARNIVAL.  Put it all together and you have the ultimate zombie apocalypse souvenir photo from THE DEADBOOTH.  We said we love this stuff.  Durr.

Seriously can’t stress how fun last night was.  The photos came out great, the venue was insane, the guests were totally on board and our stuff was even projected 20 feet high onstage at the event.  What a great night. We got zombies on the brain, so make sure to come back for a list of our favorite zombie flicks.  DEADBOOTH 4 LIFE.  Check out a few highlights below and the rest on the MRI Flickr.  HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

WITCH VS ZOMBIE! WITCH VS ZOMBIE!!!

The FInished Product