Light Trails

This style of photography is often referred to as light trails.

Photoshop is not necessarily needed. Effects like this can be achieved on a single photograph without multiple exposures.

1. You need darkness for this style. Even though the photo may end up looking light, absolute darkness is needed do this sort of photography. Usually this means shooting at night or in a very dark room.

2. You need to mount your camera on a sturdy tripod so as to avoid any vibration.

3. You should keep your shutter open for a long period of time so that you have time to draw the pattern you want. It's possible to do this by using a very low ISO (25 or 50 ideally, but more modern DLSRs don't go below 100) and high f-value aperture to reduce the amount of light entering the camera and recorded by the sensor or film. You can also use a ND filter to decrease the amount of light that enters the camera.

4. Once the shutter has opened, normally a torch or mobile can be used to draw a light trail. This is done by moving the light source around whilst keeping a line of sight between the camera and the light source. You want a light source that isn't too intense, otherwise people near the light source might show up on the photo if they are close to the source. Lasers tend not to work.

Reproducing this photo. If I was reproducing this example, I would use sparklers to draw the light in order to get the fraying spark look and have several people 'drawing' around the car whilst another two 'draw' the track simultaneously. I'm not sure one person could do all this without mucking up when relighting the sparkler.

My experience of doing this sort of a thing isn't great. Here is one attempt of mine using ignited iron wool and a length of rope, and swinging it around. Luckily nobody was hurt! But it shows the concept works, and doesn't need photoshop.