Oh, for a muse of Fire!

...that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention.
                     -Henry V, Act I, Scene I

I finally succeeded in capturing fire on camera.  Did you know, that in order to freeze flame in motion, the exposure has to be 1/500th of a second or higher?  That means that fire flickers more than 500 times a second to create that glorious, glowing motion.

My mom wants to create a screen saver out of the images and display them in a digital frame at night, so she can feel as if she's watching an actual fire.  I am warmed by the compliment.

 These pictures were taken at a friend's. She has a large back yard out in the country, and loves to host bonfires.  We were burning old boxes, plus a couple horrendous romance novels that weren't worth donating to goodwill.  As they burned, the corrugated insides of the cardboard and the spines of the book began to look like glowing spines and bits of bone amongst the logs and ash. 
I found them rather thrilling.

We made light conversation and gazed at the fire as it burned down.  Then we went home and tucked ourselves into bed.