Writing with Sparklers

Did you ever see cool photos of “sparkler writing” and want to try to recreate it? It isn’t as hard as you might think. Actually, it is pretty easy with any DSLR camera. I have a few tricks and tips to try while photographing someone writing with a sparkler. It is a fun activity to document your family holiday or even a wedding. I did individual letters so I could print and frame them, but you can try whole words. I made the image below using four letters and a storyboard. I let Jeremy do the writing in these photos so that I could photograph them, but tonight I hope to do some writing of my own while Jeremy manages the camera.

Here is what you need:

DSLR camera
Tripod or some level surface to sit your camera on
Safety sparklers (the ones that don’t burn all the way to the end)
A person who is handy at writing backwards or some type of photo editing software.

Camera settings:

I shot on Bulb mode (labeled B on my camera dial) with my Canon EOS 7D

Writing with the sparkler:

You will write a mirror image of whatever you want to read. It isn’t that difficult, and just takes a few practice attempts. If you have Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or other photo editing software you can go in and “flip” the image so that you don’t write backwards.
Frame up the shot and give whoever is writing dimensions. I told Jeremy to keep the writing directly in front of him. It will make your letters look uniform when you upload them.

Taking the shot:

Tell whoever is writing to let you know when they are going to start and finish each letter.
As they begin writing press and hold the shutter button. You will keep it depressed until they finish each letter. The camera will only capture what they wrote while the shutter button was held down.
Show the person writing the images that you took between sparklers, it will give them an idea of how to adjust their writing. We averaged 3 or 4 letters per sparkler.