Last year at the Scherschel Fireworks Extravaganza, we messed around with using sparklers and long exposures on the camera. This year I wanted to try it again, but instead of sparklers, I had picked up some red, green and blue battery powered glow sticks. They had lanyards attached to them which made them very easy to swing around. The results were quite interesting and I’d love to try it again. Here are a couple examples. For the bottom one I moved around creating the light swirls and then stood very still and briefly shone a flashlight on my face for a spooky effect.
If you want to try this yourself, you’ll need a camera with manual controls and a sturdy tripod. Specifically I took these photos with a 30 second exposure, an aperture setting around f/10 and ISO 100. It takes a few test shots to dial it in just right, but once you do, it’s easy to repeat.
