Wire wool

[grantcarlin]

Did a quick search but didn't come up with anything so here goes.

It's a long exposure light painting, but instead of torches and LED's, it uses lit wire wool.

Tools needed:

Wire wool- fine burns shorter with more sparks, course burns longer with less sparks (need about a baseball size amount to get a good burn)

Sling - to hold the wire wool, i just made a ghetto one from wire, big enough to get the wool inside but not too bigga gaps so it comes out. I have a lanyard attached

Tripod - essential for those long exposures

Lighter - to get the wool lit, or if its fine enough, a 9v battery will light it

Optional

Remote - if you haven't any friends to help and your at a spot well away from the camera, a remote can help without having to put it on timer and rely on your quick pace to get to the spot in time

Torch or flash - to light up darkened areas.


Now the technique...


I started with just some practise images, here's what I came up with



heres where the remote comes in handy, just start when you want, and when all the wool is burned out, click again to stop. It's a bit pot luck with shutter speed, just a case of experimenting. That one was 53 seconds, the majority of that time was spent getting the thing alight!


I then moved onto some composed shots and thought about the skate ramp in my village, to balance the image I wanted light on both sides but I didn't have enough time to do both and also haven't got a wireless flash so I decided to take two separate shots and light one side with a torch.



Then the actual focal point on the other.



Then... with a bit of photoshop magic, this happened



And a cheeky view on black if your interested

View On Black


So there it is, thats my first and only proper wire wool shoot so far, and found a new tunnel location I'm hoping to do very soon so keep your eyes peeled.

Also, there are far better shots on flickr, just a quick search of wire wool will pull up some great shots.



Thanks, hope you enjoyed it, and if you try some, let me see the results

DISCLAIMER: just be safe now, this is real fire so dont do anything silly, and if anybody follows this and ends up doing something silly, I'm not to blame

[Footski]

Brilliant Photograph, very imaginative and beautifully executed. I love it.

[k8et]

I spin fire poi, and have seen photos like this!

Please please, though, make sure you have someone else around who can help put out fires, a fire extinguisher (or damp NOT WET) towel. And be very careful of your surroundings, as you can see the sparks really do travel far. I would be very concerned about the ramp you were on being damaged/catching fire.

Oh, and wear only natural fibers (cotton, wool, leather). It's extremely important that if you do come in contact with fire, your clothing doesn't melt to your skin and burn you worse! :P

here's a good resource on some safety information if you are going to try this!

Sorry if I'm a downer, I totally support people doing things like this, but just don't want to see anyone getting hurt! Probably half the fire spinners I know (mostly professional performers) would be hesitant to do steel wool unless conditions were just right. (the other half is made up of people who would do it anyway and people who wouldn't even consider it :P)

Fire is a great way to paint with light, I love this series of shots!

[acedrew]

Totally going to home depot soon!! Awesome!

Andrew Rodgers
Perfected Perspectives -- Photography by Andrew Rodgers | Andrew Rodgers (acedrew) on Twitter | Login | Facebook

[RLucas]

Very nice work! I have been wanting to do some stuff like this for a while! I added you as a contact on flickr. I like the BMX stuff too!

[Quo Fan]

That is cool. Thanks for all the fire safety tips.

[k8et]

Just realized in all my lecturing I never complimented you - great shots by the way!!

[loki1982]

Great pictures!

But im confused on the process. Ive seen how you can touch a battery to wire wool and it will spark. But how are you keeping it in contact with the wool while you sling it around? And in your instructions you mention lighting the wool with a lighter. How can you lite wire wool with a lighter?

Maybe I am thinking of the wrong item. When you say wire wool or you talking about the stuff that SOS pads are made from?

[k8et]

wire wool is the steel "wool" that people use to scrub pots.

if you see my link to safety information, it has more info on how to do this. Usually a cage of chicken wire or something similar is built to contain the wool.

Some say just put a lighter to it, some say use a battery.... I dunno about either. But don't dip it in fuel (like other fire performance tools are). and don't put the battery in the cage, just use it to light the wool if you use it at all.


From the link -

What is wool spinning?
Wire wool spinning is spinning of wire cages (usually made of chicken wire) filled with burning wire wool it is very very dangerous as hot lumps of molten metal are spraying out all over the place.


20 tips for sparkly poi and safety

* Make sure your cage and chain construction is solid (don't want it falling apart mid spin) good solid quick links should be used
* Make sure the holes in your cage are quite big not too big about 1 to 2 inches (25-50mm) across
* Use fine grade wire wool it works better. The finer the better
* Don't pack your cages too tight you need good air flow over the wool for it to work
* Opposite to above, don't pack it too loose the burning wool won't pass it's burn to the rest of the wool effectively (trial and error to get this right)
* You don't need to dip, if you do your then it means your cages are badly constructed with not enough air flow.
* Spin fast but don't do any body-cross moves (rotation flowers ect) (in-fact don't do flowers you don't want the poi head spinning towards you) (buzz saws are also right out)
* Don't make your cages too big this will make them heavy and un-wielding
* Try to make the bottom of your cage round improves air flow over the hot end of the wool
* In-fact tube shaped is best with no sharp edges to catch on stuff
* If you want to have longer burn time line your cages with a metal tin can so only the end of the wool burns and the rest feeds down into it as the wool burns away
* If you do have feed tubes make sure they are smooth or the wool will just snag will not feed into the end of the cages
* Spin in the open (I mean open, your back yard will not do)
* Don't spin near any combustible stuff IE the fuel dump, dry ground, cars, people, buildings that sort of stuff. Best done after a good rain shower
* Keep people and animals well back, like 20 metres+ (you never know what might happen (we once had a head come completely off))
* Keep all skin and hair well covered ( I got a very bad burn just by one glancing my arm).
* If stuff does go wrong drop them and walk away. Don't try to put them out they are very very hot if you can drop a very damp towel on them or even better a wool fire blanket
* When you have finished don't try to empty the remains out straight away. Wait for it to cool. The lump in the bottom is semi molten metal and is very hot
* Empty the remains into a metal tin it will still be hot for a long time (don't want to start any fires now do we )
* Be sure you are a good spinner don't do silly stuff and practice with full cages unlit to get used to the feel of them

[loki1982]

Thanks for the explanation. I had the right material, I just had no idea that it would ignite. I learn something new every day.