Luminous...

In "photometry, luminous energy is the perceived energy of light". For our next assignment we were each given a word to work with and this was mine. I had recently learned how to take long exposure photographs but I hadn't actually put anything I had learned into practice yet. The first photographs I took were experiments and definitely trial and error using flash lights but the results were pretty impressive and exciting! I couldn't wait to get started. ​I had the most fun taking the above pictures, and my children especially couldn't wait to start drawing shapes and writing words with sparklers. I had always wondered how people managed to capture incredible pictures of light in motion. Apparently, drawing with light is thing. I am definitely hooked now and have bought more sparklers! 

For the word 'Luminous' (my daughter's idea) and for the angel wings (my son's idea), I set the exposure for fifteen seconds. Also, writing words is harder than it looks as she had to write backwards! We worked that out pretty quickly :) I also used the Bulb option on my camera which until very recently I had successfully ignored because I hadn't bothered to find out what its purpose is! It basically means that you can carry on taking a photograph for longer than the thirty seconds maximum that most DSLR's allow. The preview screen on my Canon is also a touch screen which made this easier. I turned the dial to Bulb, pressed the screen when I was ready to start and pressed it again to finish. Simple but the effects are incredible. It's also very important to use a tripod when attempting photographs like these. There is no way anyone can hold a camera perfectly still least of all me. My tripod has since come out of hiding and I am not sure how I managed without it. It's always there just waiting...