Back to that smoking hot photography: Reader Carol guessed correctly, yay Carol!
Here’s what we did. We took the picture in the completely dark toy closet. The exposure was set for eight seconds. While the shutter was open, one of the kids jiggled a piece of twine around the object while I shone a flashlight straight down. I also made sure I shone the light on the front of the object so that it would be visible.
That’s it! Pretty nifty, no?
That night the kids and I moved the sofa out of the way and settled down in front of the tree to do some light painting.
These (very amateur) effects were accomplished by an assortment of the following:
1. Zooming in and out with my 18-55 mm lens.
2. Using a long exposure—about 5 seconds.
3. Using a flash.
4. Rotating and jiggling the camera proper.
5. Flashlights.
6. Finger flashlights.
While we played (i.e. vied for camera time and argued loudly), my potatoes that I had set to simmering on the stove boiled dry and scorched. It was kind of fitting, after all those smoking hot photos I had taken that day.
This same time, years previous: the quotidian (12.12.11), Sunday Vignettes: Human Anatomy (“tit-bit nipply”—oh boy, I’m laughing all over again!), cashew brittle
