Title: Frame of jetty
Technique: Light painting with steel wool, captured using DSLR photography.
Process: A stainless steel whisk was used to cradle a ball of steel wool as it was set alight using a gas lighter and spun in circles using a detachable lanyard. As the steel wool was spun, the increased airflow cause the wool to burn with greater intensity and to disintegrate, creating a shower of embers. Captured using a Canon DSLR with the following settings: ISO 100, f/6.3, 10 seconds, 24mm (24-70mm lens used). The camera was on a 2 second timer to prevent camera shake when the shutter was pressed and was operated by a friend. Post processed using Adobe Lightroom to boost brightness, reduce highlights, increase shadows, increase saturation and adjust hue of the colours in the picture to make the ember trails more striking.
Reasoning: The motivation for this image was to use light painting to accentuate a structure. Initially I had planned to use long exposure photography and a torch to achieve a similar effect however when researching light painting I stumbled across steel wool photography and saw a unique opportunity to capture the jetty in a different light as explored in this picture.
Reflection: I am pleased to say the final product was much more effective than I initially anticipated. When first testing the shot, I had a much smaller spinning radius and the subsequent embers that were dislodged did not have the same uniformity of direction as the image above. Nevertheless, the major challenge in creating this image was communicating with my friend to press the camera shutter and simultaneously begin to spin the whisk-steel wool contraption while ensuring that all the steel wool ‘fuel’ was not exhausted too early in the image exposure. It was also difficult to determine the correct amount of steel wool to use in the whisk to ensure that the ‘fuel’ lasted for majority of the exposure. Finally, the warning sign on the frame of the jetty also ended up being quite appropriate given the nature of the image.
#oneperday2017
Title: GC in background
Technique: Light painting with steel wool, captured using DSLR photography.
Process: A stainless steel whisk was used to cradle a ball of steel wool as it was set alight using a gas lighter and spun in circles using a detachable conference lanyard. As the steel wool was spun, the increased airflow cause the wool to burn with greater intensity and to disintegrate, creating a shower of embers. Captured using a Canon DSLR with the following settings: ISO 100, f/6.3, 15 seconds, 47mm (24-70mm lens used). The camera was on a 2 second timer to prevent camera shake when the shutter was pressed and was operated by a friend. Post processed using Adobe Lightroom to boost brightness, reduce highlights, increase shadows, increase saturation and adjust hue of the colours in the picture to make the ember trails more striking.
Reasoning: When creating the previous steel wool image, I noticed the way in which the light from the embers was captured and reflected by the water below the pier. As we were photographing at the beach I also wanted to use the backdrop of the Gold Coast skyline which can only be captured effectively using long exposure photography at night-time. As a result, this image was motivated, whereby I leveraged the reflections from the wet sand to accentuate the effects of the long exposure with the embers, as well as to capture the Gold Coast skyline.
Reflection: The challenge in creating this image arose when trying to achieve the correct scale between the Gold Coast and myself spinning the steel wool. To remedy this issue, I zoomed in to 47mm to ‘flatten’ myself more against the backdrop, effectively creating an illusion that myself and the city were closer together. Ideally, I would have like to take this image closer to the city/skyline of interest, however, due to the light pollution from the city, the effectiveness of the long exposure would have been diminished.
#oneperday2017
Title: Halo effect
Technique: Light painting with steel wool, captured using DSLR photography.
Process: A stainless steel whisk was used to cradle a ball of steel wool as it was set alight using a gas lighter and spun in circles using a detachable conference lanyard. As the steel wool was spun, the increased airflow cause the wool to burn with greater intensity and to disintegrate, creating a shower of embers. Captured using a Canon DSLR with the following settings: ISO 100, f/6.3, 15 seconds, 42mm (24-70mm lens used). The camera was on a 2 second timer to prevent camera shake when the shutter was pressed and was operated by a friend. Post processed using Adobe Lightroom to boost brightness, reduce highlights, increase shadows, increase saturation and adjust hue of the colours in the picture to make the ember trails more striking. The final image was also cropped to showcase the
Reasoning: Considering the first two steel wool images, I wanted to explore the effect of focusing just on the steel wool embers and leverage the reflection from the beach without any other distractions. For this image, I also wanted to see the effect of spinning the steel wool contraption above my head to create a horizontal arc, as opposed to creating a vertical arc by spinning it in front of me.
Reflection: This image turned out more interesting than I initially anticipated and I was intrigued to see how the steel wool embers ‘bounced’ on the surface of the wet sand. The reflections from the sand also provided the complimentary ‘other half’ to the ember light trails and the bouncing embers almost illustrate the collision of these halves.
#oneperday2017
Title: City Light Trails
Technique: Light painting using car headlights and taillights.
Process: Long exposure DSLR photography, captured on a Canon DSLR with the following settings: ISO 100, f/9.0, 5 seconds, 70mm (24-70mm lens used). To ensure that there was no camera shake present in the shot, the DSLR was mounted on a Gorilla Pod and the shutter was released after a 2 second count-down timer. The photo was taken from Z block, Level 10 at QUT Gardens Point. Photo editing was performed using Adobe Lightroom where adjustments were made to the highlights, shadows, contrast and vibrancy to bring out the car light streaks.
Reasoning: I was motivated to take this image after discussions in class about light painting in a cityscape. I have seen similar long exposure photos and wanted to attempt to create something similar and use the riverside expressway to lead to viewer’s eye into the city and along the river.
Reflection: To achieve this final shot, multiple attempts were made to achieve the appropriate balance of the length of the light streak for the car lights and overall exposure of the photograph. I also had to time the shot according to the amount of traffic flowing over the bridge to ensure there was enough cars to make the shot effective.
#oneperday2017
Title: Bee happy
Technique: Macro DSLR photography of bees.
Process: Macro photography captured on a Canon DSLR using a 100mm macro lens. The photos were taken at the Brisbane Botanical Gardens using the following settings: f/2.8, 1/320, ISO 1600.
Reasoning: For the final image in this series I wanted to break away entirely from the mould of night-time long exposure and light painting photography. As a result, I wanted to explore the other side to this brief which is focused on the macro world of photography, and the world of bees. I was fascinated that mostly unbeknown to us, a whole other world is operating in the background, providing vital pollination to plants that support our ecosystem.
Reflection: This photo was extremely difficult to capture and even when capture it still wasn’t sharp. This is mainly due to the epic breeze that way blowing on the day I went to take this photo and paired with fading daylight it certainly was a challenging scenario. Nevertheless, I am please I caught the interaction of two bees with the flower.
#oneperday2017
