Spinning Wool - Night Photography

When i first saw this type of picture i was sure it was done with some type of firework or sparkler. Then i read the caption and it described it as "spinning wool." So i looked it up online and videos on Youtube and it turns out that it's made by spinning a lit piece of steel wool around in a circle. Here was my first attempts.



I had experimented with taking pictures at night before. About a year ago i did this Snowy Night photography, where i was using a flashlight to write my name.

So the idea is basically the same but the process is a lot more dangerous.

Setup:

• 0000 fine steel wool
• Metal harness
• Wire string
• Lighter
• Hooded sweatshirt
• Bucket of water!!!

Here's what i made as the wire and harness. I just used a coat hanger and some thin gauge wire. As it spins, the steel wool gets pushed to the end of the cage.

I remember reading from a survival book that you can start a fire with a 9 volt battery and steel wool. The charge shorts out on the metal and catches on fire. I remember being amazed that steel wool would burn. So you could use a battery to light it, but a lighter or matches works faster. Here's what the steel wool looks like after it's lit.

http://youtu.be/hBy6H7FXA5w

Now if i just left this there it would gradually turn orange and burn through in about 20 seconds. But by spinning it in a circle, you are adding more air, allowing it to burn faster and the whole process takes just 3 or 4 seconds. The reason these pictures look so cool is that the steel wool actually falls apart as it burns and it looks like a shower of sparks.

Now i didn't have the "bucket of water" when i did this but i definitely will in the future. Luckily it had rained the day before and everything was wet. All of those sparks hitting the ground is a super hot piece of metal and it stays hot for several seconds. It could very easily light something on fire if it were dry. And the hooded sweatshirt is so that if one of the hot sparks lands on your head, which is very likely.

Anyway here are the settings that i had on the camera.

Camera Settings:

• Canon with CHDK
• +-25 seconds exposure
• f/6 aperture
• ISO 250

I would say that you could do this with any digital point and shoot camera but the exposure time is tricky. My camera maxes out at 15 seconds normally. It would probably work, but you would have to crank up the aperture and ISO and it would most likely turn out grainy. So i turned on the CHDK software on my Canon S95 and set the exposure time to 25 seconds. I think that with the settings listed above it gave me a good balance between not overexposing the sparks but not underexposing the dark background. Also i probably should have turned on the RAW setting but i didn't since this was just a test. If i do this again though i would set it to RAW, which would allow for better Photoshop post editing.

As you can see the sparks fly about 30 feet depending on how fast you spin the steel. I tried different things from spinning vertical, horizontal and all different directions. The key is to get close to the camera, without letting one of the sparks damage it. I stayed on the safe side and stood +-40 feet away.

But i am definitely going to try this again sometime. It was fun and the pictures turned out better than i expected.

Justin Beiber ---> Vanilla Ice

First of all, let me just say that i know absolutely nothing about Justin Beiber. I couldn't tell you any of his songs.

But the other day i saw this picture of him and thought, "Hey, that guy looks like Vanilla Ice"



From the dumb haircut to the piece signs, the resemblance is eerie. Forgetting about the air brushed clothes.



So if history is said to repeat itself, that means that Justin Beiber soon will:

• Get held upside-down out of the 30th floor of a hotel window, by his ankles, until he pays Suge Knight money
• Sing in a live action turtle movie, based on a kids cartoon
• Become unpopular
• Get lots of tattoos
• Say he was always a "tough rapper" but just did that corny stuff for the money
• Star in a celebrity reality show

Detroit Tigers - Comerica Park Centerfield

At the start of the season Karrie bought 2 tickets for $9 each for Detroit Tigers vs Seattle Mariners. We sat in left field, section 149, row 1.

(click to enlarge)

Being right behind the bullpens, we got to see all of the pitchers warming up, including Max Scherzer, the Tigers starting pitcher.

He pitched ok, but gave up a lot of hits and the Mariners scored a few runs.

Here's video of him warming up.

http://youtu.be/HSdf6wzVIMQ

The funny thing before the game was the rookie pitchers for the Mariners walking to the bullpen with their cartoon, little kid, backpacks.

It was a little cold and windy. But for the middle of April i wasn't expecting it to be 54 degrees.

Definitely the best part of the game was Miguel Cabrera's homerun.

It was coming right for us, flew over our heads and landed 5 rows behind us. You can't see our faces because right as the camera zoomed in, we turned around to watch where the ball went.

Jose Valverde warmed up a bit, but the tigers never came close enough for him to come in at the 9th inning for the save.
We got up in the 7th and walked around the stadium.

I stopped at one of the balcony's to try and get a cool picture of the ferris wheel. It sort of came out how i wanted, but not perfect. There was too much stuff in the way.

Here's the view from the upper deck. It's been a while since i've had tickets up here, i forget that they are not that bad of seats. But with left and right field tickets selling for under $15 dollars i don't see any reason to sit way up in section 238.

Anyway, it was a fun game to go to, even though it was cold and the Tigers lost.

RoboCop Statue in Detroit

It started as a rumor...then rumor became legend.

Then people started to collect money to build a 7' tall Iron statue of RoboCop in Downtown Detroit. It may be taller and made of bronze depending on cost. And it still hasn't been finalized as to where the statue will be located. It will either be at Wayne State University Tech Town or near Michigan Central Train Station.

I made a Photoshop drawing i made of what it might look like.

Stats:
2,718 people donated money
$67,436 raised (the goal was to raise $50,000)

Here's the laser cut die pattern they will be using.

So now people going downtown for Tigers games will start saying "Let's meet at RoboCop at 7:30."

And for every person that says (in a nagging voice) "why are you building a RoboCop statue when Detroit needs money for poor people and bla bla bla..."

To answer that imaginary person; it's because that's what the people with all the money decided. They came up with a plan for a cool statue, gathered money and now it's going to be built. It's amazing how things can get built in the city when the City Council gets out of the way.

Had this been a Detroit City Council project, half the money would have mysteriously turned up missing and the other half would have been wasted to pay off their political buddies and nothing would have been built. Then they would have bickered and claimed it was a race issue saying "Why does RoboCop have to be a white guy...hummph?"

If people wanted to start a campaign called "Money to revitalize Detroit's neighborhoods" then the money would go to building houses. But that didn't happen. And even if they did, i'm sure they would have collected a lot less then the amount they collected for RoboCop.

I would only donate money to Detroit housing if it was called "Dynamite collection fund to improve housing in Detroit"