Light "Painting"

As you've likely seen on Facebook, I'm taking part in a 30 day photo "challenge" - there's no winner or loser, but it's a challenge to take a photo a day for 30 days, with each day having a different theme. So far, I've managed to keep up with the first 8 days and submit a photo taken that day. 

3 days ago, the challenge was "A view from above". I didn't know what I would shoot, and then when I was standing in the hallway of our second floor, looking down into the foyer, I had an idea to shoot my daughter from above. Originally I was going to do a more traditional shot (well lit, her posing, etc), but then when she started playing with her flashlight, I got an idea. And thus, my shot was born!

That wasn't the only photo I took during that session - she was having a lot of fun spinning around and waving the light while I did a long exposure (4 seconds seemed to be ideal, after some experimentation). I didn't use a tripod, but braced my arms on the railing, so that's why there's some blur in the background as well. For these first three shots, with the colored lights, I used low ISO (200) so the light would stand out further from the background.

 Then we got a brighter light and I upped the ISO (800) to allow in more ambient light. That allowed me to take the photo above, that I submitted for the challenge (I chose that one because you can see my daughter's face), but this was my second choice - the light looks so graceful, almost like a ribbon moving! What's your favorite?