Last weekend I went with a mate to San Luis Pass, Galveston, Texas to experiment with molten steel as an element/feature in photo’s, and ended up combining formed steel in the image too 🙂

We had a blast experimenting with this – thanks to Jeremy Caton for his self-sacrificing work “spinning the fire” (his hands are all torn up from the rotating cable – there will be gloves next time). NOTE: The use of this steel-wool technique requires locations that will not be conducive to ignition and subsequent fire!

As this was the first time either of us had tried this technique I have included the initial “practice” images – practice for Jeremy with the steel-wool, and practice for me as I figured the required metering for this molten steel. The final image is the result of the shoot.

Steel-wool experiments 2AM-116079
Canon 7D with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. f22 for 5 seconds at ISO 100.
Copyright © Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All rights reserved.

Steel-wool experiments 2AM-116083
Canon 7D with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. f11 for 13 seconds at ISO 100.
Copyright © Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All rights reserved.

Steel-wool experiments 2AM-116091
Canon 7D with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. f8 for 30 seconds at ISO 400.
Copyright © Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All rights reserved.

Jeep-Wrangler-and-Steel-wool-2AM-116085-1106087
Three image stack.
Canon 7D with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. ISO 400.
Copyright © Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All rights reserved.