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Fire and Brimstone

This is the last of the "spinning wool" series, which logically had to take place at the Indianapolis Coke & Gas plant. Juan and Tara came along for the show. Tara is a fearless thrower of sparks and her powerspinner style led to some great new shots.

Spinning Wool in the Stadium

Gareth and I went to the old Indian's stadium with the pyrotechnic gear. They are removing the seats now, so we had a step-like surface to work with, creating some cascading sparks on the ground. I also used the portrait lens to capture some soft shots, where the streaks of fire seem blurred and softened at f/1.4 with a ND 0.6 filter. Despite the fireworks, no one came to kick us our or arrest us.

February mebruary

It's been a pretty inactive month, so this entry is just a few images of more Americana antiquity.

Spinning Wool

"Spinning wool", other than turning natty sheep fur into yarn, is the technique of lighting steel wool on fire and spinning it in circles to create showers of red hot sparks. Six to eight second exposures are taken, usually at f5.0 or so. The effect is visually impressive, and when done in some interesting locations it's an entertaining night out with some beautiful results. There will be more of this series added as Ben and I continue to spin is different parts of Indianapolis.

Spinning Wool 2

Loomi & IDADA

For a mere $30 we invested in a splendid little Kickstarter.com project called the Loomi. It's a clever paper lamp design revived from the 70's by some Brooklyn artists. We got it put together--taking all our spacial-conceptual skills to puzzle it together. Also here are a few shots of the IDADA art installation in the old City Hall building here in Indianapolis. Over twenty local artists put together a pretty good show, and some of the installations have really stuck in my head.

Seattle

Shortly after the new year we had four days in Seattle, Ania was conducting interviews for two of those days at the MLA conference, and I was sick one day. So in the end we had a couple of days to run around and see as much of the city as possible. I have so say, Seattle lives up to its reputation as a very hip city, but not only that it's an amazing gateway to some of the most concentrated natural beauty in North America. Both North Cascade Range and Mount Ranier were visible from the waterfront, a reminder that larger forces are at work in Washington state.