Picture of the Day: Capturing a Fire

Photo by: Asde.

Found this in the recent uploads on Flickr. I’ve got a firepit in my backyard (which I think I need to go spend some time by soon), and fire’s a fickle thing. It’s captivating to just sit and watch as the flames flicker about. That’s why I picked out this picture. It’s a little tricky to do it right. If you jack up the shutter speed too high, there’s no movement in the flame. If you drop it down too much, it gets too blurry or the background gets burned in and the fire drops out as the subject of the picture. This picture is a good compromise – a bit of motion blur to emphasize the transient nation of fire, but a completely blacked out ambient that focuses the picture on the fire iteslf.