Peter Solness is a multi-award-winning photographer, artist, educator and writer who began his 50-year photography career contributing surfing photos to Surfing World and Tracks magazine in the 1970s.

In the early 1980s Solness took to the Australian outback on a Honda CX500 motorcycle in a personal journey of self-discovery that lasted two years. The resulting output launched his career as a photojournalist for The Sydney Morning Herald and the National Times from 1982 to 1988.

For the next 20 years Solness worked on multiple assignments for national and international magazines including TIME Australia, Good Weekend, The Bulletin and Australian Geographic. He also has a string of large-format coffee table books to his name, on subjects as diverse as the Chinese army, the Trans-Siberian Railway, Sydney Harbour and the Australian seasons.

Over a four year period in the 1990s Solness pursued his passion for Australian trees gathering stories and images for his critically acclaimed book, Tree Stories, published by Chapter & Verse and Australian Geographic in 1999.

With the advent of digital photography in the mid 2000s, Solness became a pioneer of the photographic technique of light painting, which involves mounting a camera on a tripod and working in darkness during long camera exposures of between 4 to 60 seconds.

An enthusiastic teacher and exponent of light painting as an art form, Solness runs regular workshops and presentations at Arts Schools, TAFE colleges, and the Head On and Ballarat International Foto Biennale Festivals. He also mounts large-scale public light events for community celebrations such as Science Week and Sydney WorldPride 2023.

Solness continues to develop specialist light painting workshops for secondary and primary schools to inspire younger audiences with the magic of light painting.