Back at the end of March last year, I met a man by the name of Barry Van Elder at my Train to Create workshop. It turns out he was a huge fan of the fire work that DAS and myself had done over a year ago and that it had literally ignited a spark within him to do some fire photography of his own, so when I was visiting in London, he did his best to seduce me with a cool location, fancy cars, some fancy fire toys and the possibility of creating some amazing imagery.
It worked.
Despite the fact that I really didn’t have any time budgeted to make this shoot happen, the offer was too good to miss out on so I hit up the manchester based model/makeup artist duo of Jen Brook and Donna Graham, and asked if they also happened to be free to participate in the shoot that was to take place not more than 3 days later.
An old friend, Danny Marie Elias who worked in the Underwater Realm reached out to me a day after saying she had some free time for a collaboration 2 days before the shoot… and suddenly I had a Hair Stylist.
I reached out to Marianna from Blackmirror Design, one of the designers that participated in my workshop asking if she had any pieces I could borrow for a couple days and 1 day before the shoot, I head out and pick out some pieces.
And just like that… this shoot took place with an 1955 Morgan, an Ultima GTR, a Lotus 7 and some sport bikes… all thanks to Barry’s equally crazy drive to make something happen.
The results?
Nikon D800E | 24-70mm f/2.8 | ISO 50, f/22, 17.0 Sec
Shot by lighting & dragging a kevlar rope
on fire over the floor. See more examples here and here.
Nikon D800E | 24-70mm f/2.8 | ISO 50, f/22, 41.0 Sec
Shot by strapping a kevlar rope
to a car…driven across the river. See more examples here and here.
Nikon D800E | 24-70mm f/2.8 | ISO 100, f/8.0, 7.0 Sec
Shot by lighting a fire torch
and having the model stand still while Martin bravely did some fire painting in the background.
Nikon D800E | 24-70mm f/2.8 | ISO 100, f/8.0, 1/200 Sec
Shot with some fancy smoke grenades that Barry had prepared.
Though the shots came out to be quite diverse and some stronger than others, we had an amazing night of fun and experimentation. We braved the cold and the time limitations we were given and ultimately pulled off some pretty amazing imagery even grabbing enough footage from Martin’s tiny glidecam setup to make a small video out of it.
Hope you guys enjoyed it. If you’re curious to start some fire photography on your own, I encourage you to check out this guide I made, or Van Elder’s tutorials on his own blog for more information! Don’t hesitate, you only have one life to make something out of it!
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Credits:
- Photo: Benjamin Von Wong
- Producer: Barry van Elder
- Car: Dom Farley, Rupert Richards
- Model: Jen Brook
- Makeup: Donna graham
- Hair: Danny Marie Elias
- Assists: Lee Wong, Martin Ograbek, Rick harris, Mark Andrew Ruddick, Jo Rutherford
- Location: Gawsworth Hall
- Special thanks: Jaymes Poudrier for helping me with the video
- BTS Video: Raphael Willets
Announcements:
I’ll be speaking at Imaging USA, Indiana and Mystic Seminars, CN! If you want to hang out, send me a message!- Check out my new SmugMug hosted site and my review! Let me know what you think: www.vonwong.com
- Have some Von Wong bracelets to sell on ETSY if you’ve always wanted one!