Shutterspeed magic

Its been a year since I wrote anything about photography. I did click snaps in between but there was nothing new to explain in those photographs.
This time I would like to share some useful tips about shutter-speed. If you see the above image, you can see the light trails in the background with the still image of the chair in the front. This was achieved by keeping the camera shutter open for about 1 second and using a flash.
The shutter-speed helped me in getting the trails of the lights and the flash was used to get a bright image of the chair.
If only the shutter-speed had to be used, we would have to keep it open for at least 3-4 seconds to get the bright image of the chair. To achieve that you need a stable base for the camera such as tripod or a firm rock, but since I had none of these, I used flash.
If only flash had been used for the chair, then the trails would not have been that prominent.
Hope you understood what I am trying to explain. If not please let me know.
Till the next posting see you (I hope it happens soon ;-) )