{"id":78,"date":"2008-08-30T09:35:45","date_gmt":"2008-08-30T13:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogshevik.com\/garneredimages\/?p=78"},"modified":"2008-08-30T09:35:45","modified_gmt":"2008-08-30T13:35:45","slug":"into-the-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/?p=78","title":{"rendered":"Into The Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The Path that leadeth on is lighted by one fire – the light of daring burning in the heart.\u00a0 <\/em>The more one dares, the more he shall obtain. ”
\n(Helena Petrova Blavatsky)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It’s always about the learning for me, and participating in this last photo challenge was no exception.\u00a0 Despite limited time, I found my Self becoming rather obsessed with my “grotto” idea and I think when it was all over I’d snapped off well over 1,000 shots over the course of the actual week of shooting.<\/p>\n

The biggest hurdle was\u00a0properly adding the element of\u00a0fire.\u00a0 My\u00a0very wet little\u00a0grotto, carefully balanced on the birdbath,\u00a0turned out to be\u00a0quite a\u00a0lovely “set”\u00a0and one photo taken at sunset during the 3rd session was particularly and quietly\u00a0poignant:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

For\u00a0the purposes of the contest, however, it was too quiet.\u00a0 Though all done in miniature, I really\u00a0needed more fire than just a single candle flame – but how?<\/p>\n

It was time to break out\u00a0some serious\u00a0combustibles.\u00a0 Lighter fluid was the most immediate one at hand, and after Bob ever-so-kindly moved the whole birdbath to a spot in the yard where the sunset light comes piercing through the trees, the better to illuminate the falling water, I rebuilt the tiny grotto, soaked it down, placed the candle deep inside, and positioned the camera.<\/p>\n

With Bob acting as the flame thrower, the results were nothing short of amazing!\u00a0 At least to my eyes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"The<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now the trick was to get exactly the right balance between wet and hot.\u00a0 This is much easier said than done, however, since every shot of flammable fluid creates a big burst of light and then burns down very quickly.\u00a0 If I started shooting as Bob started squirting, even with the correct exposure the result was just\u00a0too hot:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

While rather spectacular, Dante’s Inferno wasn’t really what I had in mind.<\/p>\n

As an experiment, we tried using charcoal lighter fluid, thinking it would perhaps burn a little longer than plain lighter fluid.\u00a0 It was an interesting effect, both in terms of the flame and its color:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But even though I liked it, there was only wetness and I really, really wanted to capture falling water.<\/p>\n

So we went back to using lighter fluid.\u00a0 Lots of lighter fluid.\u00a0 Lots of candles, too, since they had to be very small and ended up getting very wet as each round of shooting progressed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In all,\u00a0there were at least 10\u00a0different sessions, each held at various times of the day (and once\u00a0in the dead of\u00a0night; a\u00a0rather memorable\u00a0failure despite the use of spot lighting), finally settling on using\u00a0late afternoon light that was\u00a0uncannily clear and very, very\u00a0bright; as if even\u00a0the weather concurred with the idea.\u00a0 And after each session I would carry Matilda upstairs, plug her into the desktop computer, and painstakingly sort through the results.\u00a0 Hundreds of them.\u00a0\u00a0All in search of\u00a0the One that best told the story.<\/p>\n

The deadline was Monday morning at 8 a.m. EDT.\u00a0 But I wanted to post my entry before going to bed on Sunday.\u00a0\u00a0And when at last\u00a0Sunday night rolled around I was, frankly,\u00a0weary of the effort and seemingly suddenly there were no further opportunities to do more.\u00a0 But as is so often the case, in the end it was the element of “beginner’s luck” that held sway.\u00a0 We narrowed down the choices to a mere handful and I then solicited the opinion of some friends who could look at them with fresh eyes.<\/p>\n

And I had my entry, taken during session #4.\u00a0 It was titled “Primordial”:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think that I am most pleased that this is a single image.\u00a0 It required only minimal post-processing in the “digital darkroom”, always a sign for me that I’ve done everything right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It placed 9th in the competition<\/a>.\u00a0 It is not my intention to dismiss the efforts of those who scored more points in the judging, however, by\u00a0definition the images that were seen as more effective were really graphic illustrations, not photographs.\u00a0 The majority of entries\u00a0were stitched-together composites to create something seen only with the mind’s eye, not something seen with the physical eye, as is the standard definition of a photograph.\u00a0 Even the winner, a quite beautiful landscape, was a layered product of multiple exposures (which is really just a standard\u00a0technique so I don’t mind losing to it.)<\/p>\n

After a week’s reflection, what I find is that\u00a0I’m more than a little disappointed that Photoshop skills are apparently more valued than photographic\u00a0skills – in a photography forum.\u00a0 Yet the measure of that disappointment within the whole of my reality is very small.\u00a0 Because I really am very, very\u00a0pleased with the result of my efforts.\u00a0 I was able to create and then capture my idea, my vision, and do so very well (if I say so my Self!)\u00a0 It was a learning experience, above all, and though frustrating at times it made me think outside my box, it took me out of my usual element of shooting animals and nature.\u00a0 It was more lessons in timing and that most important matter of light.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And in the end, that is all and only goodness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The Path that leadeth on is lighted by one fire – the light of daring burning in the heart.\u00a0 The more one dares, the more he shall obtain. ” (Helena Petrova Blavatsky) \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s always about the learning for me, and participating in this last photo challenge was no exception.\u00a0 Despite limited time, I found […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}