The above photo is not mine. It was taken by May Wong. She kindly allowed me to showcase it here, I’ll explain why in a mo. Here’s her Facebook page.
For a while now Eric and I have talked about teaching a light painting class, and while nothing has come of it, we have used the excuse to burn some stuff.
This week, on a cold and extremely foggy evening, a group of us met at the beach and tried to make fire and lightning. The effect you see above is created by mixing magnesium with steel wool. I’ve wanted to do this for a while, but as “teach” I was so busy slinging fire around I never got to set up my camera. Hence, I’m showcasing May’s photo. I’m a bit pissed off about it. I think they’re the best wool pictures I’ve never taken. Ho hum.
With the help of others, I lugged more light painting tools down in to the cove than one man has the right to own. Here’s today’s lesson children: electrics and fog don’t mix. Here’s today’s lesson photographers: lights and fog don’t mix.
Most of the gadgets I built simply shorted out in the thick fog – one powered itself on there was so much water sitting on the wires. The ones that did work produced nothing of interest, defused as they were by the 100% humidity.
The only person that had it worse than me was Phil. Everything I took is covered in sand. There’s more sea spray, fog, sand, salt and crap caked on to my flashes, lenses, tripod and camera than should ever be allowed. Why is Phil in a worse place? It was the very first time his new Canon 5D III had left the house. Yikes!
Here’s some more shots from the night.
Come on, talk to us!