Last week we shared a post and photo that cooked up a lot of interest. And as promised, this week we are going to teach you how to pull off this dramatic effect.
See the bottom of this post for a complete, pinnable version of the Love on Fire DIY.
Love is Friendship Caught on Fire - Inspiration by WedOverHeels and LucidCaptures
photo by lucidcaptures
The good news: it costs less than $10 and requires no photoshop or post-processing. The bad news: it may be a teeny tiny bit dangerous, proceed at your own risk and stay safe. However, if you take precautions, you (and a couple friends) can certainly pull it off and keep your eyebrows:)
The magic behind this shoot is a simple household product: steel wool.
When set on fire, steel wool burns brightly, and when spun while on fire it will throw sparks in all directions for about 10-30 seconds.
Prep: Here are the products you're going to need:
When buying your steel wool, look for the label "superfine" or anything with a grade "0" or below (some are labelled "00" or "000", more zeros means finer wool). You also want to make sure your whisk and wire are non-flammable material.
To begin, tie the wire to the loop at the end of the whisk. For your knot, you can use a variety of fishing knots, but the point here is to make it secure. You are going to be spinning the whisk very fast and do not want it to come loose and fly away.
Next, take a piece of steel wool and pull on all sides until it doubles in size. Loosely stuff the steel wool inside the whisk and make sure that it stays in while spinning the whisk like a lasso.
To light the steel wool, you can use a lighter or matches. One tutorial we found even demonstrated using a 9V battery to light the wool.
Safety: As we mentioned above, there is a bit of risk involved in creating this effect. Wear protective clothing (long sleeves, pants) and be sure to cover your hair (no hairspray!). The sparks do not burn out on contact, so there is a chance of ruining your clothes. We used a wet umbrella as an extra layer of protection.
Location: Keep clear of anything flammable like buildings, dry grass or trees! Rocks, sand, pavement or water are all better choices.
You also want to choose somewhere relatively remote. Any background activity can ruin an exposure, so passing cars or people walking by should be avoided.
For our shoot, it had just rained and we opted for a location right beside the water. This allowed us to dip the umbrella before each shot to add an extra layer of protection from the sparks. It also meant we had zero concern of catching any of our surroundings on fire.
The rocks in our location added visual interest. The steel wool produces sparks that will break into smaller pieces on contact and then bounce or roll. The effect of the fire trickling down the rocks is one of the best parts of this effect.
Exposure: Michael from Lucid Captures tried a couple different shutter speeds with an aperture of f8 and a very high ISO. The steel wool can burn for over 20 seconds, but a 20 second shutter speed may result in too many fire trails. We had the most success with a shutter speed of about 10 seconds.
If you're brave enough to face the fire, we'd love to see what creative photos you come up with. Share the result with us!
Here is a complete, pinnable version of the Love on Fire DIY:
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Background: photo by owlandfoxstudios