Sparks fly
Oct, 2015Views
1443
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Awards
People's Choice in Steel Wool Fun Photo Challenge
People's Choice in Wire Wool abstracts Photo Challenge
People's Choice in Your Best Spinning Steel Wool Photographs Photo Challenge
People's Choice in Playing with Fire Photo Challenge
Peer Award
Outstanding Creativity
Top Choice
Absolute Masterpiece
Superb Composition
Magnificent Capture
Superior Skill
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken on the dock of a small, spring fed pond on land I own in East Texas.Time
Sitting around the house one night, around 9 pm, we were discussing neat photo ideas since we had planned to just randomly go shutterbugging the next morning. I brought up wool spinning and my wife and son were curious, so 15 minutes later we were standing in the dark taking turns snapping pictures and spinning a whisk on the end of a piece of 550 para cord.Lighting
Nothing special about the lighting on this one, it's all natural. We played around with some different exposure times and aperture settings, but let the stars and the flying sparks tell the story.Equipment
This was taken with a tripod mounted Canon 70D, using an 18-55mm kit lens. Nothing flashy or spectacular, just out having fun.Inspiration
My wife and son had never seen the effects of wool spinning, so we decided to experiment a bit one night. With the dock over the water just a 100 meters from the back door we walked down to see what sort of effects the reflections might make.Editing
The only post processing I used for this image was a bit of sharpening to bring out contrast of the individual spark paths.In my camera bag
A Canon 70D with a solid travel tripod, 18-55 and 55-250 kit lenses, 50mm f2.8, and a Rokinon 24mm f1.4 are always in my bag.Feedback
Steel wool spinning has been done every way imaginable, in every conceivable location, so it may seem like there is nothing new to try, but the beauty of the process is it's a new picture every single time. Play with your settings and see what you can get, but always try two shots at each setting since the very nature of it makes for a unique image every time you click the shutter.
