10%

lighting It Up

Night Play

By Carl Fisher

March 3^rd, 2016

Photo ops

I don’t do as many of these as I should, but I finally made it out to one of the South Bay Photo group meetups. And it was a good one. We arrived in time for sunset at the Sutro baths where I was able to snap a few pics (although I must say that I need to work on them). The purpose of this event was to do some light painting. There were roughly 12 of us who were there to be schooled and not one of us had tried this particular type of photography before. One of the key conditions required in order to make this happen is almost total darkness. So there was a bit of waiting around for the conditions to be right, but it was not so long that one would get bored and you had to keep moving (at least a bit) because it was starting to cool off.

Blur

The photo below actually turned out better than I was expecting. The people are a blur, but the remains of the building’s foundation jump out and demand your attention.

Playing with light

The sun had set and it was finally getting dark enough for us to begin. Fortunately for us our guide had secured the assistance of his two kids who did a really good job of standing still while he worked his magic. He lit up some steel wool attached to a string and then spun it vigorously in a circle. How he managed to light steel wool on fire is a mystery to me. He was too far away for me to see precisely what he was doing and we were concentrating on getting things in focus and the camera settings right. Still, I managed to get some half decent pics.

In your face

Sometimes it’s good to go solo.

Mixing it up

Steel wool on a string is nice, but what can you do with light sabers? Not a lot really. Well, you can try making patterns in the air, but the result was less than impressive. Still it shows some potential. One of the unanticipated challenges of the whole event was the salty moisture. If only I had brought some lens cleaning solution. All I seemed to be doing was spreading the salt around. Luckily someone had a thunderbolt and suggested dribbling some water on the cloth, which proved to be much more effective than using saliva (suggested by someone not quite as sharp (although what does that say about me for thinking it was a good idea at the time?)).

The middle photo was made possible with the assistance of a wandering group of folks who just happened to show up at an opportune time I don’t know what they were expected to see at that time of night. Why bother walking all the way down there just to see more darkness? I guess they wanted to get closer to the water so they could hear the waves crashing better. At least they were able to make themselves useful, even if it was for only an instant or two.

The third photo is the most intriguing. I never would have guessed how it was created. It’s a good thing I was there to see it happen with my own eyes. It was created by….hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t reveal its secret. Sometimes it’s better not knowing. As with a good magic trick, it loses its wonder when you know how it’s done. I should draw a picture to explain it, but I’m not much with a pen and paper. Maybe I’ll revisit this page when I’m feeling more energetic and inclined to be forthcoming. You’ll just have to be content with the pleasure derived from simply viewing this photo.