longexposure

Typeface Made by Taking Long-Exposure Shots of iPhone Streaks in the Dark

Long exposure photography and light painted letters have been used in many a situation. One of the more elaborate we've seen was a massive light-painting proposal we shared with you back in 2011. But what do you get when a graphics designer and self-proclaimed Apple geek decides to use the technique? Well, in the case of Marcus Byrne, you get the typeface known as Phone Streak.

Long Exposure Photography of a Moving Car at Night Using a Carbon Boom

I have a passion for automotive photography at night, but for the most part I'm forced to shoot static images. Long exposures require a stable support for your camera and that's only achievable when everything's locked down -- including the car. Sure, light painting, traffic trails and even the occasional star trail all help to introduce dynamism to static automotive images but sometimes there's no substitute for shooting the car whilst its moving.

Beautiful Firework Photographs Captured Using Clever Camera Techniques

Firework photographs are generally pretty uniform in their appearance: a dark sky, glowing sparks that are either points or lines depending on exposure time, and perhaps some views of the surrounding area. When photographing a major fireworks show last week, photographer Rob Shaw of BackFromLeave Photo wanted to do something different. He played around with various camera techniques and captured a set of firework images that is quite different than most of the images you'll see online.

Video: Making Creative Use of Focus to Capture Ethereal Firework Footage

In the past, we've shared a few creative ways to take your fireworks shots to the next level. Be it shooting hand-held long exposures for an abstract result or refocusing during a long-exposure, the results can be quite stunning.

The video above combines a couple of techniques we've shared before, making wonderful use of bokeh and the refocusing technique to create a mesmerizing minute of footage.

Long Exposure Engagement Photos Shot Under the Starry Night Sky

Long exposure photographs of stars and romantic engagement photographs aren't often found together, but that's the fusion wedding photography couple Robert Paetz and Felicia Wong have been dabbling with as of late. The duo takes their clients out into natural landscapes away from light-polluted cities and photographs them under the night sky. They call the resulting photos, "astro wedding photography."

Long Exposure Photos of Gunfire at Night (A Memorial Day Memory)

In April of 1970 I was near Phu Tai, Vietnam in the 173rd Airborne Brigade Admin Compound. We were pissed off at taking Viet Cong sniper fire from the mountain above us several nights in a row. The guy would stand up from behind a rock and blow off a clip from his AK47 on full-auto. The sniper was shooting at such a high angle that most of his rounds came through the sheet metal roofs of our hooches. We decided to use a "heavy" response the next time(s) the sniper hit us.

Time-Lapse of One of the World’s Largest Fireworks Competitions

Photographer Rob Whitworth has created a number of beautiful time-lapse videos that have received huge numbers of views online. This past April, Whitworth had the opportunity to take his skills to the city of Da Nang, Vietnam to document the Danang International Fireworks Competition 2013, one of the world's "biggest and best" firework contests.

Long Exposure Photos of Rock Faces Lit by Flashlights, the Moon, and the Stars

Earlier this month, we featured a neat light painting experiment by photographer Matt Holland that involved long exposure photos of rock climbers wearing colorful lights. The climbs resulted in colorful light trails that tracked the course each climber took.

Over the past four years, photographer Neal Grundy has also been working at combining long exposures, light painting, and rock climbing. Unlike Holland, however, his work is more focused on illuminating the faces of large cliffs rather than creating squiggly trails of light.

How to Create and Photograph Gorgeous Refractographs

Refractographs are photographs of the beautiful patterns formed when light reflects and refracts through an object. Stunning as they look, you would think that there was a lot of post processing or digital manipulation involved, but there's not, and in the above video, photographer Rob Turney gives you a step-by-step guide to taking them yourself.

Long-Exposure Infrared Photos of Trees

London-based photographer Martin Stavars has a beautiful series of photographs titled, "Portraits of Trees." For each of the photographs, he set his infrared camera up in front of a large tree and opened up the shutter for anywhere between four to ten minutes.

Long-Exposure Photos of Light Rising Up from Snowy Landscapes

"Lights Edge" is a series of beautiful pictures by photographer Kevin Cooley that show beams of light rising up from various winter landscapes. They're simple long-exposure photographs that aren't the result of any digital trickery. Instead, Cooley simply opened up his 4x5 camera and launched military-grade emergency flare into the night sky.

Abstract Long-Exposure Photographs of Colored Paper in a Cave

Los Angeles-based photographer Brice Bischoff has a project titled Bronson Caves. Between 2009 and 2010, Bischoff visited the caves in Los Angeles' Griffith Park with his 4x5 large format camera and some very large sheets of colored paper. He then used long exposure times to paint colorful blurs into the photographs by waving the papers around.

Light-Painting with a Blizzard by Pointing a Projector at the Falling Snow

Earlier today, we showed you a number of time-lapse videos of Winter Storm Nemo that were created by people who were stuck indoors due to the heavy snowfall. New York-based photographer Brian Maffitt was also stuck indoors and he also turned to photography, but instead of shooting time-lapse photos, he turned to a different technique: long-exposure light painting.

His technique is rather interesting: instead of a flashlight, Maffitt projected a movie onto the falling snow in order to light up the snowflakes.

Six Month Long Pinhole Exposures Made Using Beer Cans and Tape

After taking a pinhole workshop taught by renowned pinhole photographer Justin Quinnell, UK photog Matt Bigwood was inspired to start an interesting pinhole project of his own. Thus was born the six-month long exposure you see above, taken using a pinhole camera made from a beer can, some gaffer tape, and a sheet of 5”x7” black and white photographic paper.

A Lucky Picture-Perfect Snap of a Fireball Zipping Across the Night Sky

Walkthroughs of photographs that aren't easily reproducible (or are impossible to reproduce) might not be very useful to many, but it's still interesting to learn how rare shots come about. An example would be the photograph above, captured by photographer Bryan Hanna last week. Hanna was aiming to capture a long-exposure nighttime photograph of a landscape in the foreground and the night sky in the background, but he accidentally snagged something even better: a fireball zipping across the sky in just the right area in the frame!

Major Cities Around the World Captured in 8-Second Double Exposure Photos

One method for capturing "multiple exposure" photographs is to shoot a long exposure photograph of a scene with your camera pointed in different directions while the shutter is open. Photographer Nicolas Ruel uses this concept in an ambitious project that has taken him around the world. Titled 8 Seconds, the series features famous cities around the world (e.g. New York City, Tokyo, Beijing, Barcelona) captured in surreal multi-exposure photographs.

Blurred Long-Exposure Portraits Showing Dancers in Motion

For his project titled Motion, Brooklyn, New York-based photographer Bill Wadman shot portraits of dancers with a slow shutter speed in order to capture their movements through motion blur. The resulting photographs look like a strange fusion of photography and painting.

Starry Nightscape Photos of Major Cities Around the World

German photographer Jakob Wagner is a master of nighttime cityscape photography. For his series titled Nightscapes, traveled to various countries all over the world, shooting gorgeous images of urban environments that are teeming with points of light from buildings and cars.

A Dazzling Time-Lapse of Stars, Meteors, and Auroras Dancing in the Sky

Photographer Brad Goldpaint started his journey in photography just three years ago, but you'd never guess that from watching this impressive time-lapse effort, titled "Within Two Worlds." Goldpaint writes,

Within Two Worlds depicts an alternate perspective by giving us the illusion of times movement, signifying a beginning and end within a world of constant contradiction. It appears you are traveling in the midst of a dream, half-sleeping, half-waking, and touching the arch connecting heaven and earth.

I discovered my passion for photography shortly after my mother’s passing while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) 3 years ago. This time-lapse video is my visual representation of how the night sky and landscapes co-exist within a world of contradictions. I hope this connection between heaven and earth inspires you to discover and create your own opportunities, to reach your rightful place within two worlds.

A Photo Showing the Energy Contained in a Single Orange

Photographer Caleb Charland is well known for his projects that mix science and photography. Recently he has been working on photos showing "alternative batteries," or using things like fruits and coins to power lights. His latest image in that series is the above photo that captures the energy contained in a single orange.

Primer on Shooting Long-Exposure Night Photos on a Mountain

If you have 20 minutes to spare and would like to learn all about how to shoot long-exposure photos showing landscapes and starry skies, check out this primer by adventure photographer Kamil Tamiola. Titled "Let There Be Light," the video steps through many of the fundamental aspects of long-exposure night photography, from choosing the right environment to choosing the right gear.

Eerie Human Hologram Photograph Shot Using a Tablet and Light Painting

In 1993, a convicted murderer named Joseph Paul Jernigan was executed. Having donated his body to science, his body was sliced to provide 1,871 high-resolution cross-section photographs of human anatomy in what is known as the Visible Human Project.

Last year we shared a project called 12:31, in which two photographers used an animation of the cross-section slices to photograph ghostly figures through light-painting. Inspired by that project, photographer Andy Leach recently used the animation for a shoot of his own: he recreated Jernigan's body as a hologram.

Photographs of a New York City Plunged Into Darkness After the Storm

After Hurricane Sandy devastated New York City earlier this week, photographer Randy Scott Slavin ventured around various areas that had been plunged into darkness due to power outages. He shot eerie long-exposure photographs that make the city look like a ghost town. The series is titled "NYC Unplugged."

Gorgeous Photos of Light Experiments Shot Using Ordinary Objects

Based in San Francisco, Kim Pimmel is a photographer, a user interface designer, a DJ, and a "maker." Take a look at his experimental light painting photographs, and you'll see each of these interests shining through. Pimmel has spent years experimenting with long exposure photographs that show different light sources as brushes. His beautiful images are created using custom rigs and common objects -- things like turntables, ping pong balls, fiber optic cables, pendulums, iPhone screens, and more.

Beautiful Time-Lapse of Long Exposure Star Trails Traversing the Night Sky

North Carolina-based photographer Daniel Lowe sent us the gorgeous video above, which shows star trails forming and floating across the sky. Most time-lapse videos of the night sky show stars as points of light, rotating around Earth's pole. Lowe's video shows the long streaks of star trails doing the rotating, making the video even more surreal and magical.

Creative Firework Photographs Shot by Refocusing During Long Exposures

Photographer David Johnson recently captured a beautiful series of firework photos while attending the International Fireworks Show in Ottawa, Canada. During the Spanish fireworks performance, Johnson decided to deviate from the standard long-exposure style that pretty much everyone uses when shooting firework displays. Instead of fixing his focus at a certain point in space, Johnson introduced refocusing as part of the equation.

The Entire Alphabet Created with Long-Exposure Photos of Hand Waving

Shooting photos of the letters of the alphabet isn't anything new, but London-based photographer Amandine Alessandra's method of creating her letters is. Armed with only her arms and a camera, Alessandra shoots long exposure photographs of herself waving her hands in the shape of each letter. The project is titled Dance With Me.