Questions for you photography buffs

[blackdahlia]

Hi I am new to the forum. I don't much at all about photography. These aren't pictures I took but I was hoping someone could explain how these pictures were taken. Any software used,special effects, camera settings etc.

Is this particular effect something anyone can do and if so how?

[Gulf Coast Girl]

Looks to me like "painting with light" where the room would have been completely black except for the candle light and then a 15 - 30 second exposure is taken and the photographer uses some light source (like a laser pointer maybe) to paint in the light streaks.

I don't know for sure, just my first guess at how it was done.

[Doug Sundseth]

Long exposure, possibly with an ND filter (not ND grad) with nearly all the light provided by the candles (or whatever the bright light sources are) and then a flash at beginning or end of the exposure to freeze the environment.

The light sources are bright enough to show up with a short exposure even with the small aperture and ND filter, but the rest of the environment would be nearly black. Nearly all the light for the rest of the environment comes in around 1/20000 second from the flash.

[Doug Sundseth]

Oh, I should have mentioned that the photographer was shaking the camera during most of the exposure. You can tell this because the shapes formed by each of the lights is the same, which you couldn't do with light painting.