Experimenting with Slow Shutter Speed

I'd never thought that at slow shutter speed with subject in motion, it'll produced ghost-like pics. While photographing this, I was telling these children to run around in circles, while I was deliberately trying to support my camera on my knees, as a substitute for a tripod.

In this picture, it was the candle that was stationary on the table and it was me moving the camera that produced this heart-shaped image. Pretty difficult when you had no one to hold the light for you and make drawings with it. So I reversed the roles. The subject is still, and the photographer (me) does the drawing with the camera.

Here are all the pictures:

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I really had fun taking these shots because I didn’t know what would be the outcome. I just set the camera at slow shutter speed and play something with the aperture until I get the lighting right and do some random movement with the light/camera. I didn’t know what my result would look like. And that was the fun-slash-tiring thing about it: experimenting and discovering in the process.

Note to self:

I seriously need to get a tripod…  My hands are prone to shaking, which potentially ruins the photograph. The table would make do as a substitute, but it is limited to near and low-angled shots. I had to stoop down and try to compress myself to fit the picture, but to no avail.  In a tripod, you can make adjustments.

I should also have at least someone patient to help me with my experimentation, because my shots are not perfect and it takes awhile and a lot of trials and errors for me to get them right.