![6cjrg4.jpg](https://img.esteem.app/6cjrg4.jpg)

Good afternoon Hiveland and I hope life is good any everyone is staying safe and well.

Over the years of doing light painting I have endeavoured to take existing techniques and try to expand upon them.  

Wire wool is a very popular technique. Usually used stuffed in an egg whisk, set on fire and span in a circle.  Whilst I love this technique I wanted to use it in a more creative and controlled manner.

I began trying to separate the strands and make shapes out of it.  Serving it alight and letting the wool burn like a fuse leaving a trail of light burnt onto the camera sensor.  

Here are a few examples of this which I have captured over the years.  

![4iz8c3.jpg](https://img.esteem.app/4iz8c3.jpg)

I found my large white sheet and my bag of steel wool whilst tidying earlier, so I decided they would be the basis of tonight's shot.
Tripod 1 in the front room with the sheet pegged onto the curtain rail.  1 x Yongnuo 560iv directly behind me pointing at the sheet. 24mm @1/1 power.  Tripod swap to the kitchen and swapped lenses from my 50mm to my 20mm.  The camera was already set up pointing straight down at some teased out wire wool lay on a granite floor tile.  I lit the wool and removed the lens cap and waited for the wool to burn like a fuse.  Job done and happy days.  Goldeneye tonight :)

![c8v0a6.jpg](https://img.esteem.app/c8v0a6.jpg)

Mr Ryu Bar very kindly gave me the idea to de-focus the burning wool so no time like the present to have a go.  

I drew a picture of a falling business man on black card referencing a picture on google images then cut it out with my craft knife.   

I had to shoot wide open at F2.8 for the shallow dof but then had to use a 10 stop filter to drag back the exposure for the wool.
10 stops was a little too much so I had to boost the iso.

I placed a sheet of cellophane over a frame and placed my man on top.  Clamped that over some granite tiles and spread out the wool.  Camera directly above looking down and lit the wool.

![r4zv0f.jpg](https://img.esteem.app/r4zv0f.jpg)

I started off the evening doing some dark field lighting on my new phone but I couldn't get anything satisfactory.  
Things quickly descended into madness when I laid eyes on this skull and my big bag of steel wool.
Kept the dark field setup, added a touch of blue lighting from either side using the lp brushed hood and filter attachment and a rather snazzy steel wool haircut.

![6ay7uv.jpg](https://img.esteem.app/6ay7uv.jpg)

I hope you enjoyed this set and fingers crossed I can get back out again soon so I can have some more fun with steel wool.

If you haven't tried this technique before it's a lot of fun and you should give it a go.  Make sure you buy the finest grade steel wool you can find like 000 grade.  Obviously you need to take care as this stuff is molten metal when its burning, so you should wear suitable safety gear to avoid burning your skin off :)

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For more examples of innovative and original lightpainting including camera rotation photography, check these lightpainters: @fastchrisuk @dawnoner @mafufuma @oddballgraphics @martbarras @stefan.stepko @rod.evans.visual @yo-hoho @maxpateau These chaps are amongst the best there is!