Fire has fascinated and enabled humans to live for thousands of years, so much so that there is a common past time known as fire-gazing where the mind is allowed to wonder while peering into the twitching flames. For this shoot, I wanted to investigate combustion, the accelerated decay of organic matter including the violent eruption of heat as a result of this process. To document combustion I used a macro lens and matches that I set alight.
Many don't immediately think of fire a decay. More often than not it is assumed that decay takes place in a dark corner where it is better ignored than acknowledged. In any case it is generally safe to say that rust is considered decay as it is the breaking down of metals such as iron. Rust is fire. It is precisely the same chemical process just on a much slower scale and so if you consider rust as a type of decay then fire must join decay as well.
Image Bank:
Photographer's Research:
My main inspiration for this shoot was a photographer called Stanislav Aristov. He lives in Ekaterinburg, Russia.
He has a Canon D and multiple lenses including a Sigma EX DG and DG Os and a Canon 40mm F/2.8. and a few others. His residency in Russia means that he has access to the country's beautiful landscapes, however, it also means that he is a difficult person to research as I have been unsuccessful in finding more information about him.
This is an image of a Koala bear with flaming ears. This could be an environmental statement on Aristov's part as Koalas are too often caught in wildfires and usually end up perishing.
Chess is known all over the world as an intellectually challenging game and the creation of this Pawn would have been no mean feat either. The Pawns line the front of each players pieces and are usually the first to move and the first to be taken out. This image could symbolise either a dramatic beginning or ending to a chapter or game on life.
These images relate to my theme as fire is one of the destructive forces known to man that speeds up the decaying process.
Contact Sheets:
For this shoot I held the shutter pbutton down as the burning proces is extremely fast, especially for something as flamable as a matchstick. This means that I have a large quantity of images and consequently contact sheets.
Images that need improvement:
DS7_5771.JPG:
This image needs improvement as the flames have brightened the image to the extent of a white-out. This is because I wasn't using a fast enough shutter speed with 1.6 seconds and so there was too much light in the image for there to be any details. I managed to capture the ignition of the flames in a better image DS7_5880.JPG as you can see the orange glow from the flame and yet still see the candle and the shape of the flames.
All images past DS7_5896.JPG:
I was using a tripod for these images and I positioned it on a tilt for the first shot, this meant any subsequent images would be wonky. To fix this I will edit my photos in Photoshop soo that the horizon is straight.
My Best Images:
A03: Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.
My main idea for recording fire was to document the rapid decomposition of matches as they are relatively easy to photograph.I used a high f-stop so that the flames would be the main focus of the images along with the instant aftermath - burning embers. I also has to use a fast shutter speed as the matches burnt quickly. This is usually difficult to do with a low light environment but as soon as the matches ignited then they would white out the image. To prevent this from happening again I introduced more light before the ignition to make the change from dark to light less dramatic and so that my camera could react faster.
My favourite images are the mostly on the first contact sheet as they show the combustion of the matches in the most stages, almost like a flip book. To improve my best images I want to relate them further to my theme as the connection between decay and combustion seems weak. To strengthen this I am going to take more photographs of organic seasonal objects being decayed by combustion.
I would also like to improve the composition by using different framing or lighting techniques such as using coloured filters over my light source or using pieces of card to direct both the light emitting from the candles and my other light sources.
A02: Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.
In this shoot I used a Nikon D7200 and a 60mm macro lens with a tripod and remote release. I used a macro lens as this would allow me to capture the glowing embers and different coloured flames in depth without burning the house down or camera.
I also used a box of cooks matches and a half melted tea light. The tea light served as the matchstick holder as the flame was put out but the wax was still liquid and so I stood the matches in it. This allowed me to frame my composition and control the lighting a little better. I also used to larger candles and another tealight as ambient lighting so that the difference in lighting from the unlit matches to lit matches wasn't as large a gap for the camera to cover.
I would like to attempt this shoot again but looking at different organic materials as my theme is decaying matter and how humans are damaging the environment through unsustainable fuels to deforestation.
A01: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
My chosen photographer is Stanislav Aristov as he uses matchsticks to create different photographs. It is unclear whether he physically manipulates the fire and smoke but it more than likely that Photoshop is also involved. I felt that he related to my work as he has a well rounded sense of tone and light as well as a playful style of composing his images. I wanted to replicate the same type of tone that he has in his images as it is both playful and intricate which drags the viewer into the image by the sheer amount of detail in his photographs.
Improving My Images:
To improve my best image I will edit them in Photoshop. My camera was set up to take both JPG and RAW files so that I would be able to add them straight to the blogger and view them in file previews without having to open the RAW files and yet still be able to edit the images in RAW format in Photoshop, this means that my images will be large files with a vast amount of data.
First I opened my best images (RAW versions) in Photoshop:
Then I used the sliders to change the Contrast, highlight, shadows etc. First I changed the Contrast then moved my way down the list leaving Exposure to last as this govens the brightness of the images overall.
Next I opened all of the files individually:
I then experimented with different filters such as neon edges and camera filter:
Here is the final image:
I finally decided that this image looked like it has been edited too much and so have reverted back to the images after I had opened them individually. Here are my final images:
A04: Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements.
I feel I have created a meaningful response to the aim of my shoot and my photographer's research. This shoot was to investigate how the decay of organic matter can be accelerated and consequently the time taken to destroy is considerably reduced. The main reason that I wanted to look into combustion was that it often takes years of decay or wear and tear to damage something as drastically as fire, and yet it does it in a fraction of the time. This is what allowed us to live millions of years ago and now in this modern age, it has become either a novelty with small tea lights or a deadly hazard in the form of forest fires.
In this project, I wanted to highlight the subjectiveness of time. These matches were destroyed in a single second and yet seconds tick by and we, as a species, take no notice as we live too long to worry. Similarly, we don't notice the subtle changes in the forest, like the ground growing harder with the frost or the pine cones being crushed underfoot. Until one night the forest isn't the quiet serene place that many have known it to be, but a blazing inferno.
To continue this theme of time being a relative anomaly I would like to investigate the aftermath of a forest fire through either layering my match images with my forest scenes or through macro photography of items that would have been in the blaze.
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