Steel Wool Effect

Aloha everyone, back with another blog update for you all except it isnt a Weekend Recap. Instead this blog is about the wonderful style shooting photography with Steel Wool. Steel Wool is probably one of the most amazing invnetions ever because you can create some pertty crazy light paintings and effects while shooting photos at night or on a slow shutter speed. The best time to do shoots with steel wool is during the last hour of sunset or at night. Be creative when you want to do this style, think of places that would litterally light up the area. Its best to use a wide angle lens for a full picture of you, the steel wool lighting and surroundings.

When you buy steel wool there are many levels rating from Regular to Super Fine. The finer the steel wool, the better it is for the lights to spark off to give a brighter splash effect. What you need is the steel wool, rope, whisk and batterty or lighter(pretty much fire works) Tie the stgring( to a desired length ) to the end of the whisk and stuff the steel wool into the whisk. NOw with a heat source, light the steel wool and it will light up. This is where you activate the spinning process, the more you spin it, the more the steel wool will explode. The faster you go, the more sparks will fly out. Its best to keep it at a constant speed to have a balanced lighting effect. Be careful if your friends are shooting from a close distance, sparks may hit them as well as you getting hit with sparks.

As far as the camera settings go, its pretty much like your shooting the night sky so thats for you to find out haha. With that being said, shooting steel wool is one of the best subject medias to use for creative photography styles and I hope to do more again for my future shoots.

First ever attempt with shooting steel wool. This was a photo of my freind shooting his friend while I stood behind and spun the steel wool. I wasnt really sure if I had the right settings but this photo came out good.

My second attempt shooting with steel wool and this time it came out beautiful. My buddy and I were shooting at Shark's Cove wi9th almost literally no light so by the first steel wool session, we had the last of the sunset light to work with. Pretty much I was spinning two bags of steel wool the whole enitre night at two different beaches. (Dont try this at Shark's Cove without flashlights lol)