Ghost

28 May 2007

I wondered if, or when, I'd return to this one. It's one of those shots I used to consider posting, but just never felt satisfied with. And then after a while it slipped into the directories I didn't bother checking through. This evening is the first time I've come across it in quite a few months.

The story behind the shot is that I'd seen a coincidental trend on a couple of the photoblogs I was checking at the time. Headphoneland had a light-streak shot, and one or two other blogs I can't remember had something similar. I myself already had a couple of light-streak shots but I'd recently gotten my 400D at the time so I was eager to try the technique again.

I took it down the road in the parklands, conveniently behind some bushes that shielded me from the road, but also in a bit of a dark spot that meant I had nothing to focus on. So I came up with the idea of using my flashlight/torch to assist the autofocus, then I clicked on the timer, got in position, and spun my LEDs like poi for the 30 second exposure.

I had wanted to frame it a bit tighter, just get a full frame of streaks, but instead the flashlight I'd used as my mark was in frame and lit-up my legs a bit. The pale glow in the sky wasn't planned either, but what really grabbed me was the ghostly blur of the breeze-blown branches.

It didn't quite turn out as I intended and I've tried the technique once or twice more at home but I never get better than my previous successes, so I've always passed by this one. But now I like it. Sometimes you just need time.

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