The history of Light Painting can be traced back to the year 1914 when artist Frank Gilbreth and his wife Lillian Moller Gilbreth used small lights and the open shutter of a camera to track the motion of manufacturing and clerical workers. The couple were working on ways to simplify their jobs. They called this artistic endeavor “work simplification.” While they were not trying to achieve the effects of light paintings they are still known to produce the first light painting photographs. The first known photographer to have been given credit for using the light painting technique was Man Ray in his series “Space Writing” captured in 1935. Creatively, Man Ray’s signature was signed by penlight nearly 74 years after the pictures had been shot. Quite frankly the man was way ahead of his time, I guess you can call this the first “light painting watermark”
