Glowing embers rising from the chimney of a cozy cabin may look charming, but I can’t recommend it. Cabins tend to be less cozy when the roof is on fire.
Tag: fire
Guest Post: Ring of Fire
Today’s guest post is by David Bain:
I took the photo along a cliffside during a traditional Balinese ceremony right after sunset. It is too dark to see the cliff in the background of the picture, but the light from the fire and people’s smartphones is bright and contrasting. Nearly every single viewer is observing the ceremony through a smartphone or camera creating a technological gaze.
Red Stairs Over the Laundry Room
Capturing pictures of the everyday and mundane details of living in a place as odd as Berkeley’s Normandy Village means that I can look back to the little details. This maroon fire escape served as the back door to our apartment, but also easy access to the shared laundry room—and thus a route I frequently traversed, trying to find a time when the machines were free.
Ash Vortex
Fires in the dry, brush-filled country of the American West can be a serious problem. Driving along the Interstate, we saw the ash-carpeted remains of one. The wind whipped the fine particles into a vertical column at the crest of this hill.
Bundled Up
Structure Husk
Since I left Berkeley, a major building in the downtown burned to the ground and the wreckage was removed. I don’t remember what once stood here. That correspondence—a building missing from reality and from my memory—seems fitting.
Calcifer
Random log geometries give every fire a unique geometry; I couldn’t avoid seeing eyes (and a face) in this particular conflagration.
Fire Tube to the Portal
Burning steel wool makes for some really cool effects. With St. Lawrence University Photo Club, we experimented with illusions of depth and movement over the course of the exposure.
Burn Demon(stration)
Fire gains an unearthly, extra-sinister quality when HDR reveals the true extent of its tempestuous geometry. (The convenient “Office Burn Demonstration” cropping only added to the effect.) Knowing intellectually what a fire at work can do is very different from seeing the full effect, and I have to admit that I found the example presented by Canton’s fire department to be chillingly effective. (Pardon the temperature puns.)
Grillin’ Like a Villain
Charcoal grill, barbecue sauce, and enormous chicken thighs. The moment we slapped those bad boys on the grill, the first bits of fat made this massive flare-up. Not the best for smooth grilling, but so gorgeous in the camera’s eye.
Basically, it’s chicken from the depths of Mordor.
Ribeye Pyrotechnics
Christmas in the Hill household used to mean a big roast. This year, though, the allure of a perfectly-marbled ribeye overcame us, and we fired up the grill on a 20-degree Chicago evening. The flying sparks from the drippings were really captured in the HDR shot. There’s always something particularly strange and foreign in the quickly-varying flames when different brackets are composited together.
Decaseconds 