Your pictures of the week: Sparkle

Phil Coomes | 08:33 UK time, Thursday, 12 November 2009

It was fireworks night this week so we set the theme to sparkle. It seems to have been a popular as we received more than 500 entries.

Not all are of fireworks though and you can see the ones we have selected here.

The shot above is by Adam Lewis who worked long and hard to get the result he wanted.

I hope you enjoy looking at the pictures and if you have any comments to make you can do so below.

If your picture didn't make this week's selection, why not send us something for next week?

The new theme is "Grey". Interpret this in any way you see fit and send your pictures to us at yourpics@bbc.co.uk or upload them directly from your computer.

Please include the word "Grey" in the subject line of your message.

The deadline is midnight GMT Tuesday 17 November, and remember to add your name and a caption: who, what, where and when should be enough, though the more details you give, the better your chance of being selected.

We will publish a selection of your photos this time next week.

You can now see a list of the next four themes on this page which will be updated each week.

Files should be sent as JPEGs. They shouldn't be larger than 10Mb and ideally much smaller: around 1Mb is fine, or you can resize your pictures to 1,000 pixels across.

Please see our terms and conditions, but remember that the copyright remains with you. The pictures will only be used by the BBC for the purposes of this project. Finally, when taking photos, please do not endanger yourself or others, take unnecessary risks or infringe any laws.

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Comments

1. At 4:08pm on 12 Nov 2009, jenquest wrote:
All of them are impressive but I find myself revisiting James Guppy and Laura Kenny's images. There's something very magical about them.

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2. At 09:40am on 13 Nov 2009, jr4412 wrote:
Phil Coomes.

many beautiful images, my current favourite is Andrea's - I love winter.

I'd also like to take issue with the 'photo' you picked to head up this blog; Adam Lewis says it took him so many attempts to get it right, I'd say he submitted a composite of more than one photo. his arm holding the sparkler is perfectly still, not even the hand holding it is blurred. compare this to the motion blur seen in the photo submitted by Josef Hasaralejko who captured one of his children having fun. I'm not saying I don't like image but I do think Adam's description misleading (being polite here!) since he claims it's a single frame. thumbs down, Adam.

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3. At 12:01pm on 13 Nov 2009, Andy Finney wrote:
Adam's photo looks like a time exposure finished off with a burst of flash ... that would have taken a few attempts to get right. I'd like to know how he managed to frame his face so well.

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4. At 3:23pm on 13 Nov 2009, jr4412 wrote:
Andy Finney #3.

thank you for this explanation, benefit of the doubt it is; with a bit of luck Adam Lewis will read these entries and comment.

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5. At 5:58pm on 15 Nov 2009, Adam lewis wrote:
Only just seen these comments. To answer some of the questions: Yes it was a single exposure / photo and there was no photoshop magic - I don't even own a copy!

I had this idea in my head after seeing the title last week and instead of just making shapes with the sparkler I wanted to do something a bit different. So after returning from a fireworks party at midnight with 15 sparklers left over I took to the garden with my camera, tripod and flash. I didn't want any of the garden or me lit up in the photo other than my face as a clear still exposure and so i set up the camera with a low ISO of 100 and a small aperture of around f13 I think it was. The 1st 5 goes were all about figuring out how big a canvas I had to spell out the word Sparkle and also how long I had to do it. Each sparkler lasted about 35secs and as it was only me on my own so I had to use the camera's timer. Light the sparkler, trigger the timer and get in position on the lawn! Then it was all about writing the word Sparkle backwards in under 25 secs (the exposure time). And as Andy says above, the flash was set to go off on curtain close. As I didn't want the whole garden lit up by the flash I put it in manual mode and set it to maximum zoom so only a small area was lit by the zoom. Took a couple of tries to get the flash level right given the camera set up.

There was no real secret to the placement of my face at the end of the exposure again other than trial and error. My face was dissected by the 'r' in the 1st attempt and so it was a little lower and a little further to the left (as I was looking at the camera).

That was it. The only post processing was to increase the black level as some of the garden was slightly exposed by the flash behind me.

I sent Phil my original, edited version and some that didn't turn out so well for his amusement. Hope this answers your questions. Struggling on this weeks theme of Grey though!

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6. At 4:46pm on 29 Nov 2009, jr4412 wrote:
Adam lewis #5.

thank you for taking time to explain.
(late response, sorry)

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