Friday, January 23, 2009

haunted

Today was not a picture taking kind of day, so I thought instead I'd answer a question. A few people have asked me about this picture in the past:



i believe this is called ghosting.
(although, i could be wrong.)
it's very simple: a long exposure during which whatever you want to be ghostly is only present part of the time. For example, the above shot was taken at night in a very dark room with minimal stairway lighting and a long exposure. I set the shutter speed to bulb, which means I clicked the shutter open AND I clicked it closed. For this picture the shutter was open for close to a minute and I was sitting on the stair for twenty or thirty seconds of it. This is straight of out camera.
I also liked this version, where I was walked down the stairs veeeerrrry sloooooowly:

yesterday is a good example, too. It was a much shorter exposure, but the same principle.

so, yes. ghosting. cool looking, but not hard. I love it.

1 comment:

Ashley said...

Thanks Liz. Louk's fever spiked again tonight so it looks like I will now have something to try while stuck home again. Have I told you I am LOVE.ING all the posts. Thanks for the tutorial.