lighttrails

How To Snap Spectacular Fourth of July Fireworks This Summer

After a year indoors, this year’s Fourth of July fireworks are sure to be one of the highlights of summer. As most photographers know, the bright flash from fireworks against the dark night sky can make it tricky for both novice and experienced photographers to get a crystal-clear image of the spectacle.

Photographer Captures Pyro Skydivers in a Milky Way Photo

Photographer Dustin Snipes recently did a project that takes light-painting photography to a whole new level. Teaming up with the Red Bull Air Force Team, he shot long-exposure photos of wingsuit skydivers falling to Earth while wearing sparkling pyrotechnics.

Photos of Night Skies Full of Airplane Light Trails

Airports is an ongoing project by photographer Pete Mauney, who spends hours shooting long exposure photos near airports. He then combines the photos to create mesmerizing composites in which the night sky is filled with airplane light trails.

How to Create Long Exposure Light Trails in Video with After Effects

In this tutorial, I'll break down how I create light trails from video and how you can create a video panning shot. A panning shot is where a camera pans horizontally to track a subject in a frame, keeping the subject sharp, while blurring the background.

A Floating Cab, or: The Joy of Getting the Unexpected in Photography

There’s just something about shooting New York City at night. While the city is intriguing and beautiful in the day, there’s something about it when it's lit up at night. The assortment of lights truly jolt the city into existence.

How to Capture Stunning Star Trail Photos in Light Polluted Places

I’ve always found photos of star trails -- the arcs the stars paint across the sky as the earth turns -- fascinating. They’re one of the things that we can “see” with a camera that we can’t see with our eyes. Technology has changed how we shoot star trails, making star trail shots in locations we previously thought impossible possible.

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.

Beautiful Light Trails of Airplanes Landing

Australian PhD student Hamish Innes-Brown lurked around Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne and shot these beautiful photographs of airplanes landing using a Mamiya C330 twin lens reflex camera and Kodak Portra 160NC medium format film.

How to Photograph the Night Sky

Photographer Ben Canales created this great video tutorial teaching the basics of shooting the night sky. He goes over how to shoot quick test shots to set up your composition before discussing more in-depth tips and tricks for capturing the final shot, including the "Rule of 600".