In the right light, the long exposure photographs of David Johnson might be mistaken for beautiful sea anemones or flower heads. The photographer was at a fireworks festival in Ottawa, Canada and fiddled with his camera settings to produce some rather unusual photos of the pyrotechnic display above his head. Johnson explains his process:

The technique I used was a simple refocus during the long exposure. Each shot was about a second long, sometimes two. I’d start out of focus, and when I heard the explosion I would quickly refocus, so the little stems on these deep sea creature lookalikes would grow into a fine point. The shapes are quite bizarre, some of them I was pleasantly surprised with!

Have a look at a few of Johnson’s photos after the jump.

See more of Jonhson’s firework photos on his website.

[via The Atlantic]