Well hello everyone! It’s been a little too long since I’ve posted.
Please excuse my absence, I was moving the family to a new home in East Van and ‘real life’ took over, but it’s nice to be back.

I wanted to take a minute and post a few samples from my intermediate night photography field trip class.  This is one of the best times of year to be taking our outdoor evening classes. The sun sets around 7:15 & the weather is not too unbearable. The photographic possibilities are endless.

I personally like teaching the low light and night photography classes. I am always inspired by the images I see online to try new things and in turn, show my students. This round was all about lighting steel wool on fire! We picked the Olympic Village as our meeting place and I scoped out a safe area in order to try a new technique with the class.

All you will need to make these photos are:

1. a kitchen whisk
2. steel wool
3. string

You should also be smart and look for a safe area, and dress appropriately. This means non flammable surroundings, like a blacktop or sandy beach, damp or wet areas are good, and clothes that protect you from the sparks.  If you are doing this with a group of people, or in this case, in public, please make sure people are at a safe distance. TEST this!

What you will do is ‘puff’ the wool up and stuff it into the cage of the whisk. Tie a string to the end of the whisk so that you have enough length to spin it around safely without hitting the ground.  Use a lighter or rub a 9 volt battery on the wool and then, as it smolders, begin spinning.  The wool will begin to glow brighter and brighter with the added oxygen.  The result is something like this…

(following images by Stijn Daenens, VPW Student)

(following pictures are taken by Mark Teasdale, VPW Student)

This was a whole lot of fun, and a great easy technique.  Oh yeh, I’m sure at this point you are all asking, “what are the camera settings?”
Well, the starting point for my group of 15 was, ISO 200 f8 for a 30 second exposure, cameras set to Manual mode.  It was that simple to get a start, and any fine tuning in exposure is up to you.  Some of the class did experience a little over exposure, but shooting in RAW mode should bring back some detail.

We also ran through some fun and simple flash techniques, playing with a little pop and zoom.
Here is a photo that I grabbed really quick of Stijn.
(Thx for the use of your camera Stijn)

I can’t finish the blog off with a slightly out of focus snap that I took . The students all spent some time on their own trying out these low light techniques.  Here is a nice photo of the new bridge down at Olympic Village by my above victim, Stijn.

Keep up to date with all our future events on www.vancouverphotoworkshops.com

Written by: syx on September 28, 2011.

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