Light Play

One of the nice things about having a DSLR is being able to do some long exposure photography at night 🙂 I’ve always loved the light-trail and light-painting photos.  We’re just now starting to experiment with it and hope to get some more spectacular shots the next time we are out in the desert.  For now, though, we are practicing closer to home.

While we have done several photos just using more common light sources, we’ve also been doing some other photos with much more interesting materials – I especially like these that we captured using steel wool as our light source.  I had no idea that steel wool would make for such an interesting subject, but light it on fire, and it makes great trails as it breaks apart…

It should go without saying, you should not do this if there is any sort of fire hazard or similar risk nearby.   You should make sure to wear fire resistant clothing if you are the one handling the steel wool (and a hat, protective eyewear, appropriate footwear, and possibly gloves as well)…and I’ve read that you should take precautions to protect your camera and lens(es) depending on how far the sparks are flying.

I unfortunately seemed to have missed the memo that fireworks are now legal in my state…so when those fireworks stands go up next time, I think I’m going to need to stock up on sparklers…you know, for photography 🙂