LED madness

Here's an image I shot recently to enter into a photo competition where the subject was entitled 'After Dark':

This is really homage to Jeff Newsom's 'I make gold records' series of images, although I'm certain that the spinning ball is not of his imagining only.

I shot multiple takes of this 30 second exposure counting and choreographing the run in, spin and then run out till I got the result I wanted. I held two 6v lantern batteries wired in serial to two automotive LED headlamp lights on the same circuit. This allowed me to create an inner circle of white surrounded by an outer sphere of red in one take.

Many people have asked why they cannot see me running around in the shot and the answer is simply that in an exposure of this length I'm not still long enough to be visible really. Against a lighter background I'd be more visible in the middle of the sphere perhaps. But not at twilight.

I didn't get anywhere in the competition but then I was happy enough with the image!

-j