Photography Challenge - Day 29 - Long Exposure

After being slightly worried about the Long Exposure challenge I finally had figured out an awesome idea (so I thought) and then planned out exactly how to achieve it.

Step 1. Wait for a Friday or Saturday night
Step 2. When said night finally happens drive out to a look out point after dark.
Step 3. Take Long Exposure Shot of the city lights.
Step 4. Head home!

Sounds easy right? Well this photographer waited too long to do this challenge and now I'm stuck with pictures that I'm not fond of. But the tester shots I took at home, just to confirm I knew what I was doing, turned out somewhat neat!

I knew in order to test it I would need some sort of light and my first thought was a burning candle. Since Chuckles got home from the movies before I left we decided to just use a lighter. So I had him flick on a lighter and then I snapped away using a couple different shutter speeds.

I ended up with this:

Kind of neat looking right? I thought so too and trust me it's way better than the "city lights" I was trying to capture!

Just to give you an idea of the difference in the shots here's one of the camera at regular exposure:

I personally prefer the regular exposure shot. I mean how well did that capture the flame?? Pretty darn well!! Plus the second shot shows less of my messy living room....

You just went back and looked at my first photo didn't you? :) It's okay I would too!!

But there is quite a difference in the two photos. While I like the regular exposure out of these two photos my Paps recently took some amazing photos of a waterfall using a long exposure. I think I'd like to work on my long exposure shots more and try again this fall, maybe I can capture of flowing river or a small stream. I'm headed to our local fair one night this coming week, maybe I should bring the camera and try it on the rides?

I am definitely intrigued by these types of shots now and I can't wait to play around with them...

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Sunday!!