Creative Exposures Using Sparklers as the Primary Light Soucre
Peace sign created with sparklers and a fill-in flash
Using Sparklers as the Primary Light Source: Intro
If you're looking for a really creative challenge in night photography, making times exposures of people playing with sparklers is a really fun way to spend an hour on a summers night. By keeping the shutter locked open (you'll need a "bulb" setting in your manual-exposure mode and its easier if you own a locking cable release) and having someone wave around a sparkler, you can trace some really fascinating patterns of light. And if you have an accessory flash handy, you can also capture a freeze-frame portrait simultaneously.
In order to capture the frames here, I enlisted the help of my friends Lynne and Sarah. You can do this with less than three people (let the subject light their own sparklers) but it really is easier as a three-person job because having a person to light the sparklers and then step out of the frame makes things go much more smoothly. (Incidentally, if sparklers aren't legal where you live or of you want to use young kids as your subjects, you can also use a penlight flashlight as your light source.) Basically the technique consists of two actual exposures on one frame: a time exposure to record the light tracings and then a flash exposure to record the person. If you don't want your subject to show up, you can eliminate the flash step. The actual steps you'll need to use will depend somewhat on whether your camera has a full-manual mode with a bulb setting or if you're using a camera that only has a night-scene mode. I'll discuss both options in each step. By the way, sparklers are pretty safe but they get very hot, so use a lot of caution--this isn't something you should do with young kids.
Step-by-step:
1. Find a dark location with a distant background. It's simpler to
eliminate the possibility of a garage or streetlight (or house light)
showing up in the scene if you choose a dark corner of the yard.
2. Set your camera to either the manual or night-scene exposure mode.
I prefer using a full manual exposure mode, but you can do this
technique with a night-scene mode. If you have the option to use "rear-curtain sync" flash mode, choose that. It will fire the flash
just before the end of the exposure. Also, since I used a dSLR to
create these photos, I was able to use an accessory flash (off camera)
and fire it any time I chose during the exposure. If you're using a
dSLR and have an accessory flash, this is a much more flexible way to
make the flash exposure. Using an accessory flash, you can fire the manually using the "test" button and that gives you a lot more flexibility in terms of timing (and also opens up the possibility of firing the flash several times if you have a creative reason for that).
3. Set your aperture to a small opening to help you maintain sharp
focus. The exact aperture isn't critical and you can make test
exposures to see how your settings are working.
4. Use a tripod if you have one and use a flashlight to help you
frame the scene. Have your "lighter" person (in this case my friend Lynne) hold
a flashlight on your subject as you begin each exposure to help you
compose the scene and focus in the darkness. (Turn the flashlight off
as soon as you begin the exposure outlined below.) Using a flashlight
not only helps you frame the scene more carefully, but the light from
it will help your camera focus (though many cameras are capable of
focusing in darkness using a built-in focus-assist light). If your
camera won't focus even with the flashlight and you have a manual-focus
mode, choose that.
5. Make a test exposure to see if you need to adjust the aperture of
the flash power. If you're using an accessory flash you probably can
adjust the flash powerif the flash portion is too dark, increase the
power or move closer (if it's too powerful, reverse that). Have your
subject make a test pattern with the sparkler. You may also want to
reframe the scene to be sure the sparkler pattern is staying in the
frame. Once you have a good basic exposure and good framing down,
you're ready to make a "final" exposure.
6. Have your assistant light a new sparkler and then open the shutter
or begin the exposure. It's much simpler to start the exposure after
the sparkler is lit.
7. Tell your subject to create some sort of light pattern using the
sparkler. I had Sarah draw circles in front of her in some exposures,
make a peace sign in others and had her write her name several
times in other frames. She drew great circles, which helped, and I also
had her shrink the circles as the exposure neared an end. I also used
Lynne as a subject in a few shots and she drew huge flowers in mid-air.
8. Just before the sparkler goes out, fire the flash. If youre using
a manual flash you can decide when to fire the flash. If you're using a
night-scene mode with a point-and-shoot camera then the flash will just
fire at the end of the exposure. Since I was using manual mode and an
separate flash, I was able to tell my subjects when to smile and then
I'd fire the flash (otherwise they have to stand there and grin the
whole time). By the way, if you don't want your subject to show at all and all that you want to see is the light tracing, just have your subject wear all black (gloves, hat, etc.) and don't fire a flash.
9. Review your photos and reshoot if you need to. Including test shots
(and I shot separate tests of just my subject and just the circles) we
shot about two dozen images. About eight or 10 were keepers. The speed
of the sparkler's motion will affect the image to some degree: the
faster it moves the thinner the lines, the slower they move the wider
the lines get.
For more on night photo techniques, see my new book (Wiley; 2008).
Here is my friend Sarah making practice circles while I practiced getting the exposure correct for the fill-in flash. The timing of her smile was important because she had to be smiling exactly when the flash was fired.
Here's Sarah writing her name with a sparkler. The tought part was that in order for the camera to be able to read the letters, she had to write "in space" backwards. It was tough but she did a perfect job. Later we shot a few of her writing her name normally with the idea that I could "flip" it horizontally in Photoshop. But as it turns out, one of her first attempts at doing it "backwards" turned out the best.
And here's Lynne drawing a flower in space. It's much easier (for me) to take the pictures than to try and draw them in space!