A first attempt at light painting

These firefighters are actually a statue in Occidental Park, in the Pioneer Square neighbourhood of Seattle. This was my first night-time experiment with "light painting": I set up for as long an exposure as I could manage, and then used a couple of hand-held strobes to "paint" light onto the firefighters.

I rate this first attempt as only moderately successful. My main problem was that even witih multiple flash pops, my flashes weren't overpowering the background. I only realized later that this was because I was making my flashes work rediculously hard by using an f/22 aperture. Of course, I had done that to extend the exposure time. It might be time to invest in some ND grad filters, or just shoot somewhere darker.