On a recent senior shoot with Jordan Ellis, I decided to try something new with night photography and fire. Using long shutter speeds I was able to capture some pretty cool shots.
Most of you are probably wondering, how in the world did you do that!? Using long shutter speeds can open a whole new world of photography. You can do some neat things with light making star trails, ghost pictures, and the list goes on. For these I took a metal coat hanger and straightened it out but made a hook at one end. i wrapped fine shaved steel wool on the hook and secured it so that i could spin the wire in circles without it flying off. All I did then was put a 10 second timer on my camera and lit the steel wool and swung it around to throw the sparks outward. The open shutter will track every motion of the sparks thus creating these sweet pictures. here are a few specs on how I set up my camera.
For this shot with the truck, I used a 15mm Canon wide-angle fisheye for 5.0 sec at f/22, ISO 400. This was literally my first atempt at this shot and it turned out beautifully. Seconds after shooting this picture a Ft. Worth cop rode up on his bike and we thought we were in some sort of serious trouble. but he only asked us if Jordan was going to actually park his truck like that. I told him we'd only be a few minutes and then off he went.
