Iron Man 3
Crosby Beach Iron Man
Crosby Beach Iron Man
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Dec, 2012Views
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Garto1
February 10, 2013
Thanks for all your kind comments! Anyone who can should get down to Crosby, it makes for some fantastic shots with the 99 statues!
Coomanator
February 10, 2013
Wow, this is very cool. Added to favorites. Congratulations on the "Feature".
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akhtarkhan
February 10, 2013
Spectacular fireworks display, precision focusing, magnificent light and colour.Brilliant setting.....nice work. Congrats on the feature.
mailsmc
February 10, 2013
Love it! I've been trying to find a good place to do this, w/out catching everything on fire! lol Congrats on your feature!
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photograph was captured at Crosby Beach in Liverpool. The home of the spectacular piece of artwork "Another Place" designed by Antony Gormley. 100 cast iron, life-sized sculptures made from casts of the artists own body, stretch over 3km of the foreshore and almost 1km out to sea. Previous locations of these figures could be seen in Germany, Norway and Belgium before they became a permanent feature at Crosby Beach UK.Time
I'll never forget the night that this photo was captured as it was, and still is, one of my favourite pictures from my entire portfolio. It was the middle of October around 10pm, and the weather was surprisingly mild considering the time of year. The clouds delivered a wonderful backdrop as they filled the sky and bounced all the red and ambers from the nearby port to equal that from the wire wool used to create the sparks.Lighting
Because the image was being shot so late in the evening, the most important thing to consider was how to balance the light in front of the sculpture so the details could be seen, whilst not blowing out the image with the strength of the sparks. With the shutter speed being 30/1 and having no off camera flash available (not that that would help much without continuous bursts), I decided the best option would be to use my head-lamp and my roadside breakdown touch to light the sculpture from the floor. Knowing that the sparks would spin for roughly 10 seconds and the extra 20 would balance the sky and the surroundings, it was more of an educated guess and a little hope that delivered the lighting at the front. Thankfully it managed to do just the trick.Equipment
The equipment used to capture the image included, a canon 1100D with a standard 18-55mm kit lens, a tripod, 2 LED torches to light the image from the front, a balloon whisk with a piece of string attached to the bottom for spinning (yes, the same thing you would use to whisk an egg in any kitchen), a bag of wire-wool and a cigarette lighter (to ignite the wire wool once it has been placed inside the balloon whisk).Inspiration
The inspiration for the picture came from my appreciation of both, Antony Gormley's sculptures and my new found joy in light painting with wire wool. I had visited the beach many times to see "Another Place" and just the week before I had tried, for the first time, the technique of spinning wire wool in a balloon whisk. The first session I enjoyed tremendously, and it was done inside a tunnel, but I had always wanted to produce an image from Gormley's iron men that would stand apart from almost any other image Id seen of these figures before. This was my opportunity.Editing
When the photograph was taken I didn't consider myself to be great at editing pictures, but at the same time I needed to merge two of the images Id captured that night, to allow for the sparks to fall in two separate directions on either side of the figure. I spent a few hours tracing line after line of orange sparks from behind the sculpture to the foreground, using 2 separate layers, one fully masked out on top of the image I was using for the main picture (something I could have fixed in the shot if I had just spun the whisk in two different directions during the capture. And something I would advise anyone trying to use this idea, to do!!!). Other than that there wasn't much post editing at all.In my camera bag
To prepare for a night photography shoot, the first piece of equipment that goes in my bag is a good LED torch. When I started off with my trusty 1100D and limited knowledge of how to set-up my camera I could use my torch as my auto-focus point in a pitch black setting. Knowing that whatever I needed to focus on, as long as my torch or magnetic LED light was at attached to that, I would be in-focus! This would be the best tip I could give anyone starting out for the first time in the dark!! Next would be a good headlamp, a shutter release cable to enable "bulb" mode and image captures above 30 seconds on most cameras, a tripod (essential for image stabilisation in dark settings), 18-55mm Kit lens as I'm quite clumsy and don't want to trip in the dark and drop and destroy anything worth losing as I've gone through a few of these in my time (feel free to use what you like though!!), wire wool (because you never know) and a whisk on a string. Anything else is a bonus really.Feedback
The best advice for anyone trying to capture an image like this, would be to practice taking long exposures at home first. Try lighting a candle then turning all the lights off in a room that will become dark, and working with this to get your timings and understanding how the light will work with your equipment. As fun as the dark can be and light painting is, it can be very disappointing if you don't practice with something simple to start with. After you get the hang of this, try spinning a light attached to a string and see what you can do from there. For image capture, I find somewhere between 7.1 and 9 for your aperture settings and normally between 10 and 30 seconds to capture the light trails from the sparks. With the aperture being higher you get more of the sparks in focus. I am normally around 10 meters, give or take, in-front of the subject and spinning about 5m behind it ( Be aware that if you are using this method of spinning wire wool inside a balloon whisk you do so at your own risk. There is a serious risk of being severely injured and I am not advising anyone to attempt this. I am describing how I captured the picture and the methods used to do so). Have fun, don't get disheartened if it doesn't go right the first time round and remember, if its dark and you can't get an auto-focus point when you're starting out, Tony the torch will always serve you well if you attach it to the object and shine it towards your lens! Voila, sharp images all night :)
