A Floral Abstract (Photo 25)

A Floral Abstract
NEX-6, 55-210mm E-Mount Lens @ 55mm, Aperture Priority Mode, 4 secs, ISO 400, f/4.5

After seeing a video on DigitalRev TV, where they were setting fire to flowers, I thought that would make an excellent subject for this week’s post – A Floral Abstract. After my problems with last week’s theme, I really wanted to get a good photo and I am definitely happy with the results, but as usual things did not go as smoothly as I first expected! Aware that this is often the case, I began my preparation on Tuesday, and started my hunt for Isopropyl Alcohol (which they used in the video that I saw) and some flowers.

My first attempt at a photo of a flower on fire – I like the shape of the flames, almost like a fire angel with a rose for its head. The flames are not delicate enough for the effect that I was looking for though.

It turns out that it can be very difficult to find anywhere that sells Isopropyl Alcohol, also known as Rubbing Alcohol for its cleaning properties, and so after stopping at hardware shops and chemists (as advised on the Internet) I was still empty handed. I also did not have any flowers, as the one florist in my local area decided to lock up before 16:40, despite advertising a closing time of 17:00. In the end, I decided to go to Morrisons where I bought a bottle of 40% brandy, along with a small bunch of roses and a small bunch of orange germini – the checkout girl must have thought it was somebody’s lucky night!

I chose orange germini, as I wanted the blue flames of alcohol to contrast with the orange flower.

Despite all the hype of setting Christmas Puddings on fire, this brandy was not catching light for me. Having had a number of flaming sambucas in my time, I am fully aware that alcoholic drinks are more than capable of being lit easily, but I think it has something to do with getting the right mix of vapour off the liquid and so on, and I didn’t have the first idea of where to start with figuring that out! Come to think of it, I should have tried lighting the brandy in my mouth – that would have been a good test to find out whether or not it actually was flammable. I have plenty left to test at least! Anyhow, things were not going to happen that evening, and so I ordered a bottle of Isopropyl Alcohol off Amazon as a back up.

I thought that three flowers in the same plant pot would create a reasonable effect, but my lack of lighting for this shot stops it from working I think.

Wednesday came around, and I searched the Internet for suggestions of where to buy Isopropyl Alcohol on the High Street. I came across one post that mentioned Maplin, the electronics retailer, so I called the local branch and they confirmed that they had it in both spray and can form, so I opted for the spray in order to have more control over where I applied it to the flowers, and also to prevent myself from getting it everywhere. That evening, I took all of my equipment outside and started taking shots of the flowers in plant pots that I have on the wall – I originally bought these to grow herbs in, but as the herbs died within days of me planting them I’m just glad that I have finally found a use for them.

I have three plant pots, so stuck a flower in each and set my lens’ aperture to the maximum size, to create a shallow depth of field.

Other than the featured image, the shots that you have seen so far were taken on the Wednesday evening, when I finally had a reliable flammable liquid. I was using my camera in Aperture Priority mode, as I wanted to control the depth of field, but wasn’t too concerned about what shutter speed the camera was going to choose. However, I forgot to change the ISO setting out of Auto, so the camera chose the maximum Auto setting of 3200 (the maximum manual setting of the NEX-6 is 25600), which is why the shots look too grainy for my liking.

This was my favourite overall shot from my first attempt with the flowers. It looks sharp, and I like the fact that the colourful pots are included too.

Unhappy with myself for forgetting to set the ISO manually, I had another quick attempt at photographing flaming flowers last night. Due to the bitterly cold, strong wind and the constant light snowfall that we have been experiencing across the UK the last two days, I decided to take the shots in my kitchen, with the tiled floor presumably being fairly fire-resistant if the worst were to happen. Luckily, nothing terrible happened and I did not cause any fire related damage to the house, but I did get a couple more shots that I was really happy with – the featured shot being one of them. I also really like this next shot too, as it seems to be the sharpest of the photos that I took, with the flower’s petals also being quite untouched by the flame at that point.

My 2nd favourite shot from this week’s post. It is reasonably sharp, with good colour and flames, but it would have benefitted from a smaller aperture so that the stem is also in sharper focus.

My technique for capturing the images was basically the same both nights (apart from the ISO setting of course). I used a tripod to keep my camera steady, and decided to use my telephoto lens as it seems to give a more pleasing depth of field effect than my kit 18-55mm lens does. I positioned the flowers and then sprayed them with the Isopropyl Alcohol, before lighting them with a standard plastic lighter. I set my camera to Aperture Priority mode, and allowed it to decide what shutter speed to use, as I knew that it would decide on something around a second or longer, due to the lack of ambient lighting.

I edited the original shot slightly, using CameraBag 2, to see what other effects I could get with the image. I prefer the stronger circle of light behind the flower here, but the highlights in the flames have been pushed a little too far up, losing some of the detail.

The longer shutter speeds allowed the flames to be captured with more of a blur effect, and I used my remote control to take the photos to prevent any camera shake from blurring the flowers as well. As I also wanted to control the point of focus, I was manually focusing on the flowers beforehand, and left the camera’s focus mode in manual, so that it did not try to refocus once I was ready to take the actual shots.

I applied another CameraBag 2 filter to create this black and white version of the featured shot.

I chose the featured image because of the slightly vintage feel I get from the background. The 4 second shutter speed allowed more ambient light to come back off the background, and I added a vignette in Aperture 3 to create a more circular effect to that light. It is not as sharp as my second favourite shot, but I prefer the overall effect. Incidentally, my second favourite shot was taken with a shutter speed of just one second, which is why the background looks completely black, as there was not time for enough ambient light to reflect back on to the NEX-6’s sensor.

I hope that you have enjoyed the photos, and if you’re going to try, please do be careful not to let any burning liquid fall on to children, pets or soft furnishings – do it outdoors if you can.