Our dining room

Ellen by Candlelight
Photograph by Tom Atwood

A magician never reveals his secrets, but here's how I took this photo of my daughter Ellen in our dining room last year. First, I asked her to sit very still and look at the camera, which was mounted on a tripod and triggered using a timer. It was set for a 25-second exposure.  I had a candle in my hand, and once the exposure began, I walked around Ellen holding the candle just beneath her face. I also walked toward the painting on the wall behind her, a self-portrait of my Aunt Thelma, painted when she was a teenager in the 1920s. You can't see me, because I am moving (although you can sort of see my shadow when I paused near Aunt Thelma's painting). Ellen did a remarkable job of not only sitting motionless, but also looking directly at the lens, and not blinking or moving her eyes. She looks fairly normal, even though nothing around her is. Exposure: 25 secs; Aperture: f/6.3; ISO: 400; Focal length: 18 mm.