About this limited edition photograph:

The light painted photograph “Fire Hydrant” was created on Park Street in Decorah, Iowa.

To create this light painted photograph I first spent the week driving around town at night searching for a fire hydrant that was far away from any street lights to prevent my photograph from becoming overexposed in tungsten light. I eventually located one on Park Street. I placed my Canon T3i camera on a tripod and I used a long exposure of 631 seconds. I created the faux fire effect by kneeling down beside the fire hydrant and waving a red LED glow stick around, trying to shape my red tracers of light such that they look like fire is shooting out of the fire hydrant. Fast and random whipping motions allowed me to create the appearance of flames. The first 50 or so attempts did not look anything like fire, but persistence paid off and eventually I had achieved the look that I was after. It was a challenge not to leave any gaps in light, so I had to pay close attention to my spacial memory. 

This photograph came off my camera as-is, and involved zero post-processing or Photoshop.

Nocturnal Designs © 2013.