Just a short one really but thought i’d quickly upload my latest venture. Tuesday night saw me heading out to Monsal Tunnels with a friend who had suggested we give the new craze of wire wool burning a go. I was a little unsure at first admittedly, but as I hadn’t been out at the weekend due to weather I thought it would at least get me out.

For those that don’t know, wire wool burning is the effect of what looks like fireworks shot at close proximity to the camera (see pics below for a better understanding). It is achieved by a crude means and that is getting a whisk, stuffing it full of wire wool, attaching it to a dog lead, lighting the wire wool and spining it around.

I am very familiar with Monsal Tunnel’s, having run tuition here a few times. So I set my standard composition up and got to work. It was a case at first of trying light painting and making orbs at first (yet to be processed) and then faffing about trying to get settings and focus spot on. A few attempts with the wire wool and we were getting to know what we were doing.

Also, a quick disclaimer. While the resulting pictures look dramatic and lots of fire, the truth is there isn’t loads and is a combination of the long exposure recording each spoke over the duration of 30 seconds or so. No damage is done to any of the surroundings.

This first image was created standing just off 90 degrees to the camera and spinning the wire wool is one circular motion, this actually gave a bit of dynamism to the image as it come towards you: