Sparks
Sven February 6th, 2010
Who knew it would be so hard to get a lighter to work in a gentle sea breeze? Thankfully, I did get it going, even if it did require some perseverence, and it worked fine until I dropped it into the sea…
I had in mind to try something with reflections, so I drove about half an hour to a bayside point where, at low tide, one may walk a kilometre out along a sandbar to a small island. On the other side of the island, the sand is level and rippled, with pools of water, and it was here I figured I might go. I didn’t have a moon to speak of, but I did have the lights of the port in the distance, and of course, I made my own light during the exposures as well.
If not for the the lighter issue, I could have have continued to refine these until I came up with exactly what I was after, but alas, there’s not much to be done when your only source of ignition bites the dust.
That rippled sand never disappoints.
- Excursions
- Comments(7)
This is cool, though I wonder what anybody who happened to observe you thought was going on.
Would you mind explaining how you created this effect, what materials you used etc.?
Anyway it sure beats my Saturday night – getting questioned by the Feds and not taking a shot :(
It’s actually just burning steel wool. It still seems odd to me that you *can* burn steel wool, but it lights easily (if your lighter works properly in the breeze), and when swung through the air sends out a spectacular shower of red-hot fragments of metal :). I use a length of cotton string (plastic string melts), tied to a u-bolt, into which I jam a wad of steel wool. The bolt adds a bit of weight, which makes it easier to swing. Avoid soap-infused steel wool, which doesn’t burn, and go for plain, unadorned steel wool (Bunnings sell a large roll for about ten dollars, from memory).
Oh, what was the story with the Feds?
Cheers for the info, sounds dangerous hehe.
Regarding the Feds: well, with the wife in tow, I was heading back from dinner over the North side and thought I’d drop by Eagle Farm on the way home, with a view to checking out those engine testing sheds you visited recently.
I wanted to scout out the location more than anything, as it looks like a good spot to try some light painting.
Anyway, as I was unsure of the exact location I did a bit of low speed cruising around the area and as I stopped to turn around near the DFO thingy, the Feds just kind of swooped, boxed me in and proceeded to ask a series of yes/no questions – basically in a round-about sort of way they were asking me if I was a criminal.
I just answered “No” to all the bad stuff and considering the apparent effort they invested in stopping me, the questions turned out to be very lame LOL :) As I’m primarily a sunrise photographer I’m not used to being harassed by cops/security guards etc.
(Oh and I did eventually locate the sheds, but the weather turned bad.)
Oh yeah just a quick heads-up to any terrorists reading this blog; don’t cruise Eagle Farm on a Saturday night (maybe try Sunday instead), but if you do happen to get stopped, just lie and say you’re lost like I did… you’re sure to fool ‘em.
Well, that is certainly interesting – I’ve done my share of slow driving around there, though perhaps not on a Saturday night. As for the sheds, you might need to take your swimming gear – last I saw them they were a little wet:
Sweet, that should make things interesting :)