Long Exposure Magic

 

At first these spectacular swirls of color may look like clever computer graphics.  Actually they are the product of hour after hour of painstaking night-time shooting by photographer Lincoln Harrison.   His stunning pictures of star trails across the Australian night sky were taken over periods of up to 15 hours.

According to wikipedia, long exposure photography involves using a long-duration shutter speed to capture the stationary elements of images while blurring, smearing or obscuring the moving parts.  The paths of moving light sources become clearly visible.

That sounds simple and straight-forward enough.  But what these artists exhibit is pure magic.  Various techniques and subject matter open an astounding variety of visual effects.

Where I can find them, I’ve included links to further images and to more technical explanations for the curious and geeky visitor.  Please let us know your favorites in the comments below.

By David Johnson

David Johnson has devised a way to photograph fireworks that is other-worldly and unique.

Click here if you want to read about how these images were made and here for more images by David Johnson.

Photographer Bill Wadman captures 9 dancers in flowing motion.

Roomba is a robotic vacuum cleaner that is able to autonomously vacuum the floor while navigating a living space and avoiding obstacles.

It also comes equipped with color-changing LEDs that indicate things like remaining battery power and dirty spots. The LED lights combined with a seemingly random cleaning path has led some intrepid photographers to take long exposure photographs. The results are a kind of ‘light painting.’

 

 

From Eric S. at  Wildammo:

Light painting is an awesome technique that can be created in a variety of ways such as using LEDs (like Roomba) or fireworks.   But for some, steel wool is a great choice. Steel wool grade 0 and finer (00, 000) is flammable. You can attach a pad to a wire or string and spin it around and create a shower of sparks.   The faster you swing the more sparks you get.

This is a composite of a series of long exposure images photographed from a mounted camera on the Earth-orbiting International Space Station, from approximately 240 miles above Earth by  Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit.  For details on his technique go to webodysseum.

People create gorgeous long exposure images of ferris wheels.

 

Other Amusement Park Rides

Airplane takeoffs

Streets

Not sure how they did this:

 

 

 

 

Even a wedding photo using sparklers.

That’s if for LONG EXPOSURE images.  In case you are interested, here’s a taste of a SHORT EXPOSURE or high speed image from another post on this site.

Go here if you want to explore what photographic whizzes can do with high speed photography.

Thanks to Twistedsifter for the roomba images.  And to wildammo for the steel wool images.  And to webodysseum for the images from the international space station.