After receiving a small assignment based around shutter speed I decided to go and do some long exposure night photographs but with my own twist.

Instead of doing the usual light trails etc I decided to photograph a subject and use the longer exposure to my advantage to get creative with lighting rather than letting the ambient light dominate the photograph. I exposed for the background and then lit the subject (in this case a car) using a speedlight off camera firing multiple times which gives a creative lighting effect which I would have needed several lights firing at once if the exposure was shorter.

I ran into some problems early on because the car is a reflective surface the light would often bounce from it and onto me meaning I was ghosted into the image. The key with any long exposure image is movement. If you don't want something to be in your image keep it moving and it will either not appear or you will see the trail of it's movement. This depends on how long your exposure is and what kind of photograph you are trying to achieve.

These final shots are a combination of 2 photographs. A 30 second exposure at ISO 200 f/16 or f/8 to get a base exposure and then another photograph using the same settings but with the car being lit by a flashgun. I was running around the car firing the flash several times in one photo giving the illusion that several lights we're used.

I then stacked the 2 photos in photoshop and used the first base exposure as a layer mask to paint out unwanted elements such as light trails from the LEDs on the flash or where I was ghosted into the image.

This is a fairly common technique often used in architecture photography amongst other fields. It's something I would like the investigate more and see how far I can push the boundaries subject wise.

I will be posting the initial shots that led up to the final 2 photos very soon as well as commenting on what I think worked and what I can improve on for future shoots.