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.

While a City Sleeps (Photo 19)

While a City Sleeps
NEX-6, 55-210mm E-Mount Lens, Manual Mode, 2.5 sec, ISO 400, f/14

I decided to attempt this week’s theme as it coincided with me taking a night time photography course, with Manchester Photographic, which my brother and his wife kindly bought me for Christmas. I have interpreted the theme slightly differently to the literal meaning of taking photos in the middle of the night, as the photos I have were all taken between around 19:00 and 22:00, but I think that the important part of this is learning to tackle photography after dark.

I chose the featured image because I like the way the lighting catches the stairway and throws shadows on to the brickwork. It also gives the sense of a deserted industrial building during the night, and I have added a tint, before de-saturating the colours in the image by quite a large amount, using Aperture 3. The image is just a relatively small detail of Meadow Mill in Stockport, which I visited on Friday evening whilst searching out subjects for this post.

A much wider view of Meadow Mill, with passing cars creating light trails.

My inspiration for the way that I have approached the majority of these photos comes from recently being introduced to dibec.com, by somebody who will hopefully be helping me out with his artistic vision in some future posts – JP Hubbard-Byfield, whose own blog you can take a look at right here, for some awesome imagery. Dibec’s photos are stunning, with a good number being taken at night, and seem to capture the beauty that is created by mixing light and darkness, with some very clever composition thrown in for good measure. I can’t claim to have even nearly perfected his technique, but I have enjoyed trying to approach photography in a similar way.

Another area of the mill, lit by a single light and surrounded by darkness.

The above photo of the entrance to KC Autos is the sort of thing that I had in mind, but I had to zoom closer in than I would really have liked to because there were a number of lights in the surrounding background – ideally, I was looking for an illuminated subject completely surrounded by darkness. I added a green/blue tint to this photo, along with the strongest available vignette to make sure that any surrounding areas are not visible in the final image. I also tried a black and white version, with a little bit of colour brought back through. I’m not too sure if I like the effect, but you can judge for yourself – I think I probably needed a few more details across the image to bring colour back to:

The same photo as above, but treated differently in Aperture 3.

The mill was quite an interesting subject to photograph overall, with lots of details and shadows to capture. I used a combination of Manual, Shutter Priority and Aperture Priority modes for the photos, but my main concern was to use fairly high f-stops on the aperture, in order to get the starburst effect in the lights that were on show. For this type of photography it is pretty much essential to have a sturdy tripod, as you will usually be using shutter speeds of at least one second or longer – it is possible to rest your camera on inanimate objects of course, but that limits your ability to point it in exactly the right direction. Here is one more shot of the mill, which is a close-up of some illuminated arches and another staircase – I also de-saturated the colours in this photograph:

Close-up of Meadow Mill, with de-satruated colours, but not to the point of turning it black and white. It roughly follows the triangular rule of thirds.

My initial attempts at taking photographs for this post were from my MCR @ Night course, which was on Tuesday. The course was interesting and the tutor gave everybody some useful hints and tips for taking photos at night. I had come across most of them, but then I do read quite a lot about photography! We went out in a group of about 12, and stopped off at various places to take some shots – I lost count of how many people asked us who we were waiting to photograph though, as we looked like a group of paparazzi waiting for celebrities! We started off with some traffic shots of light trails, at the top of Portland Street, near Piccadilly, where I caught a couple of fire engines drive past:

The flashing blue lights of the fire engines gave a slightly different effect than a normal vehicle’s headlights would do.

We then moved further down Portland Street, where I took the next image, which I thought was slightly closer to the style of some of Dibec’s shots. The one problem with modern Britain though is that councils just love to plant sign posts and railings absolutely everywhere – with the introduction of health and safety saving so many potential victims of Darwinism, people’s common sense can no longer be relied upon! It seems almost impossible to get a clear view of interesting buildings/objects, so please excuse the crowded composition of this:

I chose this shot because I wanted to capture the light trails of a bus wrapping around the corner of the building.

Chinatown was the next stop along the tour, where it started to rain (unusual for Manchester!). I managed to get one hurried shot, where I like the effect of rain on my camera’s lens, before losing my bottle and putting the NEX-6 back in my backpack to stay dry. The composition leaves plenty to be desired, but with a little tinting I think it has a pleasing effect overall:

My one shot in Chinatown, before I decided not to test the NEX-6’s water resistance!

Thankfully the rain relented as we moved on to Mosley Street, in order to take some shots of the Metrolink trams, where I managed to get a little closer to the style of photos that I was really keen to take. I chose to take the following shot from quite a wide angle, so that I could make the strong lines of the buildings into one of the main features of the image. I again tinted the final image, with greens and blues, which are complemented by the orange lighting that I also captured:

Light trails from a tram travelling down Mosley Street.

I used the same tint for the following photograph as well, which is of the reception area from 58 Mosley Street. I really liked the bright interior contrasted against the dark, wet night that we were in outside:

58 Mosley Street – I’m not sure what the building is actually used for, but it looked like an interesting image to capture.

I have to say that night time, urban photography is definitely something that I really enjoy. Once you get over the slight awkwardness of being out in the streets with a camera and tripod, whilst people wonder what you are doing, and whether or not they need to call the police on a crazy person, it is quite a relaxing experience! I suppose that is because you are forced to slow down by the fact that you need to use longer exposures and a tripod, meaning that you naturally take more care over composition and camera settings. I will leave you with one more shot, which I took in St. Ann’s Square, of the Town Hall. I used the bracketing feature of the NEX-6 for this, which means it takes 3 shots of varying exposures. You can then put these together in computer software and create a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image. This means that you capture detail in shadows and light, when with just one shot you would have to choose one or the other…

Black & White HDR image of Manchester Town Hall.