Most people when they discover lightpainting photography invariably end up using burning steel wool. I see many people spinning steel wool around in the dark in various ways and mostly these days I kinda think it's "old rope" as in it's been done to death and nothing new.
That being said I've done a fair few shots with steel wool and I have the scars to prove it!
Bandstand of Fire
This bandstand was recently refurbished at the time and was reconstructed in steel rather than the wood previously. It felt like it might have been more resistant to fire so it would have been remiss of me not to spin some wool inside. This is me in a t-shirt risking a few burns spinning furiously with an egg whisk full of fire!
Always remember to turn off your head torch
I have a habit of doing this. Spinning something fiery and then immediately turning on my head torch to find my way back to camera to end the exposure. I should know better!
Fire under the Arches
I shot this right back almost to the beginning of my light painting days. I'd recently realised what could be done with steel wool and decided to make these railway arches part of the frame. This is a reminder that I should revisit this place local to me and make a new version of this knowing what I know now all these years later!
Hot canal locks
I live close to a 245 year old canal with many locks running through my home town. This is another early shot from me where I was beginning to add other elements to the images rather than just the steel wool spin itself. For the foreground I waved a quad colour torch around and I subsequently learned that gelled torches work better than coloured LED's. Or at least they did back when I shot this more than 12 years ago!
Firing up Coleby Grange
This building is an abandoned WW2 RAF control tower in Lincolnshire. During the war the UK built airfields in pairs so they could quickly switch airfields should one become damaged by enemy bombing. Coleby was the 2nd airfield for Waddington nearby.
For this shot, I wandered around inside the tower in the dark with a flashlight whilst a friend climbed on the sketchy roof and spun a steel wool orb. The white sparky traces are where magnesium strips had been interspersed with the steel wool where the magnesium burns white hot rather than the steel wool's orange.
With this one some of the magnesium strip flew off and set fire to the grass. Cue me running over to stamp out the fire. We were lucky, magnesium is damned hot! I haven't used it since, it's too risky!
Great ball of fire
Spinning a fiery egg whisk of steel wool whilst spinning on the spot is not as easy as it may first seem. I'm normally pretty terrible at spinning orbs but somehow I seem to have greater success with orbs when it's on fire! Not sure why??
If Michelangelo was a Lightpainter....
This was one if my first attempts at lens swapping with an iPad. I used a downloaded copy of Michelangelo's famous work and importantly not much chance of being sued for copyright! I Photoshopped it and aligned God to point at the left hand third of the frame. I first shot the iPad image, then, without ending the exposure I spun a drill loaded with steel wool on the left hand third to give the appearance of God spinning the fire! All in one photographic exposure as usual.
Is it me or is it getting hot in here?
I discovered that my local pound shop (aka dollar store) sold cheap umbrellas for £1. I bought a few thinking I could get maybe one shot with each umbrella before the thing disintegrated. I was somewhat surprised to find that these things were flameproof and somehow the one umbrella survived all night!
I somehow now have 5 umbrellas, all intact!
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.
Social Media
https://www.facebook.com/fastchrisuk
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fastchris/
Lightpainting is a photographic technique in which exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source while taking a long exposure photograph, either to illuminate a subject or to shine a point of light directly at the camera, or by moving the camera itself during exposure. Nothing is added or removed in post processing.
If you would like to see more lightpainting please give the Lightpainters United Community a follow and you will be introduced into the illuminating world of light painting!
If you want to see more examples of lightpainting, feel free to check out these guys:
Mafu Fuma | Oddballgraphics | FadetoBlack | DAWN | Mart Barras | Stefan Stepke | Nikolay Trebukhin | Lee Todd | Stabeu Light | Maxime Pateau | Stephen Sampson | lightandlense | Neil Rushby | L.A.C.E.
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