Golden Rain Shower
Multiple light sources, wire wool and me as the model, helped create this effect
Multiple light sources, wire wool and me as the model, helped create this effect
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Feb, 2016Views
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People's Choice in Creative Steel Wool Photo Challenge
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken at Beniworth Tunnel in rural Lincolnshire. An abandoned tunnel with a road going over the top and easy access from a small car park about 80 yards away.Time
We waited until it was dark and took the photo at 9:50pm.Lighting
We took a group of us out and we all had different ideas and i had an idea that if we could get the wire wool to bounce off the umbrella, it would look pretty cool. Unfortunately it didn't bounce off the umbrella, instead it burnt big holes in it. The closeness of the walls and ceiling also meant that it would keep a nice clear edge to the sparks. I had to do a 130 second exposure, so i could get all the backing LED lights in to light up the walls and also light the wire wool and spin as much as possible. I was also very keen to give the appearance of the wire wool dancing around the floor and the 'bouncing' looks great.Equipment
This was shot on a Canon 7D and a Canon EFS 15-85mm F1:3.5-5.6 IS USM lense set at 15mm. I used a sturdy Manfrotto tripod because it is often windy and a lightweight tripod allows for movement and blur the image and when you are doing any timed exposures, you need your camera to stay still!Inspiration
I have been teaching Light Painting with one of the UK's best light painters, Chris Thompson and he creates so many different images and this was one he had spoken about before and this night was just ideal and came out really well.Editing
Only processing i did was to crop it just a little. The rest is straight out of the camera. Something that is very important in the Light Painting world. We let our cameras, our light sources and our imagination, make the image without the need for editing.In my camera bag
I always have my two Canon 7D's, although i hope to get the 7D MkII very soon, with this i always have the Canon EF 50mm 1:1.8 MkII lense for close up detailed work. I think this is an excellent lense and every camera bag should have one. I then have my Canon EFS 15-85mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS USM lense lense, which i use for my portrait and wedding shoots. A very versatile lense that is pin sharp and extremely quick to focus. My last lense in my bag is my Canon EF 100-400mm 1:4.5-5.6 L IS. This lense is my work horse and one i use for all sorts of things from wildlife to candid wedding shots and especially aviation photography. An extremely good quality lense, very quick focus and pin sharp images. I wouldn't be without it. I also keep spare memory cards, spare batteries and sensor cleaning kit.Feedback
Always use a heavy tripod for stability. Bulb mode for long exposure, remote shutter release to prevent camera shake, F9-11 and change you white balance to 2500 Kelvins, this removes the orange lit sky (if you are to include the sky in any night time shoot) and puts some blue into the image making the skies dark again. This also creates a vibrancy to the end image. Experiment with different light sources from torches with gel strips to change the colours emitted, to wire wool. Get a medium sized metal whisk, fine grade wire wool and attach a chain to the whisk so you can spin it. loosen the wire wool, then put it inside the whisk and get a 9 volt battery and rub over the wool. This ignites the wool and it smolders. Quickly start spinning the wool and it will produce long stream of melting metal strands, which create the glowing stream effects. For the walls and ceiling we used an LED strip that changes colours and simply walk along the wall slowly so that it creates a nice back drop. Always ensure the LED strip is facing away from the cameras, otherwise you will get very bright light streaks, instead of the walls softly lit.
