Painting with Light

While watching the sunset over a quiet Iowa landscape I experimented with a photo technique called, "Painting with Light."  I switched my camera to Manual ("M" on the dial)and decreased my shutter speed so that the shutter was open for about 10 seconds.  I set the camera on a flat, stable surface in order to decrease camera shake as much as possible (no blur!) after pressing the shutter release, I "wrote" with a flashlight in the sand.  Keep in mind I had no clue what was being captured.  To me it looked like I was shining a flashlight in the sand.  Here is what happened:

COOL!  So next we faced the camera toward the sunset, and Brian faced the camera while "writing" a name with the flashlight on...which feels rather strange since you can't really "see" what you are doing.  The results:

Nice cursive name.  And he was smart enough to write backwards so that it was forwards for the camera.  He is such a smart guy.  OK, my turn again.

I'm not as smart.  I was more concerned with good penmanship.

Then I got a bright idea.  What if I shut the flashlight off between letters during the 10 seconds of writing?  Could we avoid cursive?

Sweet, it worked!  But I still wrote it backwards.  Brian's turn again.

Oops, didn't write fast enough!  Missing the "Y."  We decided we'd better get back to the kids, who were sleeping in the cabin.

Can't wait for the fourth of July to capture some sparklers with long shutter speeds!  And capture the long streaks of fireworks too!