Long-exposure photography techniques capture movement through blurred trails. This document discusses using these techniques to create star trails by tracking celestial object movement with a slow shutter speed. While most photographers do this on busy roads, the author was only able to recreate light trails in a still photo with their basic camera. They discovered Adobe AfterEffects software can similarly edit video clips to distort shapes and blend speeds to generate light trails, which is what the author has tried to do for their music video by adding echo effects.

1. Light Trails
Long-exposure photography techniques are used by professionals for a sophisticated, artistic
aesthetic. A slow shutter speed captures movements that would normally be stationary and blurs
them along their path of movement.
A popularapplicationof thistechnique is to create star trails in the
night sky which can track the movement of celestial objects. Most
photographers, however, use this technique on busy roads and
highways. The effect, when done properly, is brilliantly colourful
and illuminated. Nevertheless, to achieve such footage quality
requiresexpensiveequipmentthe likes of which weren’t available
to us.
By changing our camera settings, we managed to recreate a light
trail in a photo,butnot infootage (NikonD3100, F11, shutterspeed
of 10 and ISO 100).
Upon further research, I discovered that a similar effect can be created on video by using the
software calledAdobe AfterEffects.ThisissimilartoAdobe Premiere but can edit smaller details of
particularclipsto distortshapes,change colours,andblendspeeds. This is exactly what I have tried
to do to create a light trail for my music video.
To do this, I have addedan echoto the
footage withthe followingspecial
effectcontrols.