Playing with Fire

      There's just something about fire and sparks.

      We respond to it immediately, it's exciting, like a dramatic event unfolding in front of us. So, of course I have to use that when shooting a short story for Su Casa Magazine about Phoenix artist Adam Carter, who makes interesting metal sculpture for the home.

     Working with slow shutter speeds and just the minimally-needed amount of strategically-placed remote flash, we end up with a nicely-lit image, recorded with a slow shutter speed, that allows sparks to etch sharp streaks of light across the image.   

Adam Carter prepares pieces of steel for the next project in his workshop-studio.

One of two studio strobes skims the steel to light up the rim of the fire pit.

      Photographing his final work in place presented interesting challenges, including lighting up the art, and the building in the background while also allowing the gas-fed fire pit to appear alight rather than just looking like a blue light casting illumination on the sand.

      Meanwhile, in order to not overpower the fire with artificial lighting, I needed to position strobes to the left and right of the fire pit, positioned across the fire pit, from the camera position thus allowing light to skim across the steel frame, without overpowering the illumination generated by the fire, while forming shadows in the sand pattern. I also added an additional light to fill in the front side of the frame to show off the face of the pit.

Adam Carter enjoys playing with fire.