I’ve been working on the “Nature vs Machine” project due next week, and one of the natural phenomenons I really love are fireflies, or lightning bugs, and the effects of photographing them with low shutter speeds. It can be very beautiful! So, for one of the sketches, I knew I wanted to play with the idea of fireflies and light “paths” left by their movement.

I’ll be updating this post with the iterations I make. Because of the way I’ve set up the “jar” these fireflies are in, I want to make sure it looks correct when posted on the blog!

In the first iteration, the fireflies are more scattered when the ellipses are drawn (due to use of the random fuction) so they look more sparkly. In the second iteration, I played with the variables and lowered them so that the paths left by the fireflies are more linear, but still randomized. I also added noise to their movements to make them more realistic.