While you were sleeping: 'time lapse' photos of sleeping people

Photographer Paul Maria Schneggenburger has always been fascinated by sleep, the state when the body is inactive and resting, when the senses and the mind are withdrawn so much that the mind does not receive anything. At that time, the Dutchman turns on his camera and, with the help of a long exposure time, photographs people while they sleep, creating the feeling that they are leaving a trace with their unconscious movement. they dance in their sleep.

Paul Maria Schneggenburger he took photos at first people sleeping on benches, on trains and at parties. In 2010, he got the idea to get started long exposure photography. And so the black and white series was born The Sleep of the Beloved, which was initially part of his graduation work at the Vienna Academy of Arts, but soon grew into multi-year project.

At first, with a six-hour exposure photographed himself while sleeping, then couples and families and everyone else who was willing to spend the night in his Viennese photography studio. And there were really a lot of them. You can contact him yourself.

Black and white footage they are created on a bed with black bedding vs a candlelit room and the camera hanging above the bed. The photographs are on the one hand extremely intimate and on the other surrealistic.