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steel wool

This company has actually made a steel wool “photography kit” and it costs $2.64

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The steel wool photography thing isn’t exactly a new idea. In fact, it’s been done to death. To the point now where most photographers avoid having anything to do with it, which isn’t surprising after a number of high profile fires in recent years. It’s not difficult to do, and it doesn’t require a lot of items to do it, either. Items you can pick up in just about any high street (or hardware store).

While browsing around AliExpress, though, it seems a company has actually put a “kit” together. Yes, a kit, consisting of a pack of steel wool, an egg whisk, and some wire to swing it from. There’s no affiliate link here, I just thought this was amusing, given the readily available nature of the “equipment” this type of photography requires.

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This crazy fire funnel was created entirely in camera

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With long exposure photography, you create unusual, surreal worlds in your photos. UK-based photographer Tim Gamble specializes in long exposure light photography and makes breath-taking artwork. One of his photos really caught our eye, so we wanted to hear more about how it was taken. We chatted with Tim about the photo he titled Love is a Burning Thing, and he shared with DIYP some details on how it was created.

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Burning wire wool through a macro lens becomes a raging firestorm

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When the whole wire wool thing was pretty cool and new a decade or more ago, many photographers stocked up. Then the idiots discovered it. These days, it’s become a bit of a boring and cliché subject. Some of us, though, still have mountains of the stuff sitting in our garage that we could never possibly use. The good news is, it can still make an excellent photographic subject, especially with a macro lens.

This video from the Macro Room shows what it looks like when you burn wire wool up close. It’s a mesmerising video, and offers all kinds of suggestions for things to try yourself.

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Monroe Station in Big Cypress reduced to ashes after steel wool spin shot gone wrong

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Now, this is why we cannot have nice things.

While I am not enjoying saying this, it looks like photographers are slowly earning the bad cred that authorities are giving them. After shuttering a 126 old statue for a selfie, it is now revealed that the fire on The Big Cypress Monroe Station last month was probably caused by a photographer trying to spin steel wool for a light paining photo.

In a press release by Bob DeGross Chief of Interpretation and Public Affairs at Big Cypress National Preserve, it is stated that:

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4K video shows steel wool spitting out embers as it’s spun around in extreme slow motion

Lighting steel wool on fire and spinning it around on a string is a common technique to get incredible looking spirals and orbs in long-exposure photographs.

What isn’t so common is to film in extremely slow motion what this technique looks like. But, thanks to the The Slow Mo Guys, we now get to see in 4K slow mo what it looks like when spinning steel wool fires off hundreds of small embers as it’s spun through the air.[Read More…]

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