(D70, 18 mm, ISO ??, f6.3, 2.0 sec)
Here's a fun technique for shooting at the annual Christmas at Temple Square photowalk tomorrow, or for evenings out with friends and family during the holiday season. And best of all, besides the look, is that you can't do it on the tripod you really didn't want to carry anyway.
What's happening is the camera is making a very long exposure to get the streaks of ambient light, and at the very end, the flash fires to freeze the subject of the portrait. To do it, you need to change one or two settings on your camera. In the Nikon world, use aperture priority metering and set your flash options in camera to "Slow-rear-curtain sync." You may have to read the manual to set this in the menu, depending on the model. Make some test shot without the flash to see if the ambient light is being captured at the desired levels, then turn on the flash. Make some more test shots to see if the flash is filling the subject well. If it's not bright enough, move closer to your subject and see if that helps. In the Canon world, it's called second curtain sync, and that's the extreme limit of my Canon knowledge. Others at the Photowalk will be able to help out, I'm sure.
For the first picture, taken in 2004 with my first DSLR at the Olympic Cauldron Park on the University of Utah campus, I moved the camera around wildly, just trying to keep my subject in the frame.
Dancing in the streets (D700, 35mm, ISO 6400, f8, 1/6th second)
I made the second image in Lesbos, Greece, this summer at a friend's daughter's baptism party. The guests were literally dancing in the streets to traditional music. While they circled around me, I used the same technique, only this time I moved with the dancers to create the motion.
It seem to me that this style of portraiture to works best on really happy people.
P.S. Don't forget about the clothing drive at tomorrow's Photowalk. Together, we can help make a lot of folks a little happier this holiday season.
