Tag: steel wool

  • Burning at the night garden

    Burning at the night garden

    Our friends at the Star Circle Academy were kind enough to let us play with fire again. The trip to the beach was a hoot, as 15 or so new friends learned how to burn and spin steel wool & magnesium, how to use light painting to plant a night garden, and generally improved their…

  • 4 Days In Death Valley

    4 Days In Death Valley

    [wzslider autoplay=”true”] We were delighted to be invited on a sleep depriving, dust breathing, 4 day shooting marathon in California’s Death Valley. This post documents the ordeal and showcases, what we’re sad to admit, are less than stellar photographs. Day 1. We arrive in Las Vegas as the light is fading. Not bothering with the…

  • Tutorial: spinning, burning, layers, blending, masking and textures

    Tutorial: spinning, burning, layers, blending, masking and textures

    This tutorial is the whole enchilada. We cover everything from the tools you need to spin wire / steel wool, the camera settings you need to capture the image, and then all the Photoshop stuff required to make the image memorable: layers, blending modes, transparency, masking, and multiple textures. It’s a tad long at 7…

  • Under the fire red umbrella

    Under the fire red umbrella

    The Star Circle Academy recently invited Eric and I to burn some stuff for them. And so on a warm Friday evening, 20 people climbed down on to the beach in Santa Cruz and proceeded to make mayhem. Steel wool (wire wool if you’re British), magnesium, lighter (BBQ) fluid, flash lights (torches), and all manner…

  • Tutorial: Neighing in the rain (white balance)

    Tutorial: Neighing in the rain (white balance)

    It’s all about the crop or It’s all about the temperature I posted the below picture last week. I was very unhappy with it at the time but I couldn’t work out how to make it better. Thanks to May‘s version of the image, I now know what I was doing wrong. The above picture…

  • Slinging Fire in the Fog

    Slinging Fire in the Fog

    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…

  • Stars and Fireworks – 3x Published Picture!

    Stars and Fireworks – 3x Published Picture!

    I love this picture. I took it a while back on the beach in Santa Cruz, while surrounded by high kids asking “hey man, that’s cool. What ya doin? Wanna smoke with us?”. It’s actually two spins that meshed together nicely – one towards the camera, the other perpendicular. It’s somewhat unusual in that I…