So…..it got a bit hot and something got melted!

I’d had a few ideas for Feel the Heat, my first one being glass blowing but the nearest glass place to me in Stourbridge couldn’t confirm which days this would be happening so it would be hit and miss if I visited, another was BBQ but then July kindly produced so much rain which killed that idea, Pinterest had some interesting ideas in the searches i did that might make a starting point – although I wasn’t sure Chris would be too pleased if I got him to hold some burning cotton wool even if it was only soaked in acetone! Then I came across an article on how to get melted plastic off an oven shelf.

This was a lucky find as at this point it was the day before entries closed it was either going to be a mass of tealight flames or some artfully arranged lit matches.

So, not wanting to test the actual solutions to getting plastic off an oven shelf, I started to look for things to melt and a setup/location where this could be done. There were a few candidates including old CD’s, plastic bottles, etc but then I found it. Well option 1, a lens coffee mug on my desk which was being used as a pen pot. Damn, it was ceramic – watch out for that one if we ever have the topic of smashed. I knew we had a couple more somewhere, the next find had some plastic but was lined with metal which might work but probably not possible with the flame thrower; might have to get the welding gear on that. Finally, I found the third mug which was completely plastic with a bit of rubber thrown in for good measure. 

Thought about using a shot with the flame thrower in the image but the sun (which was on our left) made it difficult to see the heat/flame without affecting the rest of the image; this is another from early on so definitely not enough melt! Do like the flame distribution across the mug though.

The setup – used the bench as the starting point, the background is an aluminium rear undertray from the race car which was made to test a design idea before making it out of carbon fibre, the mug is sat on a galvanised steel shelf (left over from one of Francesca’s flat moves) – we raised this up on some bricks so that we didn’t burn the bench!

Should I include the shadow of the flame thrower? Liked this one as one of the flames was just covering the end of the shadow; but again not melty enough yet!

Now this is getting better, more melt showing, even a little bead of plastic and there’s a bit of a flaming bit of plastic peaking out part way down the mug. Quite likes the pattern of smoke and flames in this one but couldn’t get a balanced crop and didn’t like the chopped off smoke at the top.

Bit of a fast forward to the end of the shoot, time to put the flame thrower away and get the hose out. I did consider entering another montage but decided against it.

This nearly made it, after the flames were out I turned the mug but in the end felt that this didn’t really show feeling the heat but just the aftermath.

The entry….it was the falling piece of burning plastic (even though I would’ve liked it to be sharper – note to self use more f-stop next time) and the fact I could get a get a good crop with a wisp of smoke heading out of the top left corner with the flame lower down.

So to the techy bit….OM1 with 12-100, shot at f5.0. Processed first in ACR – daylight WB warmed a bit, added some clarity, bit of vibrance and a small amount of dehaze then in Photoshop for cropping and a bit of curves.

So, I hope you enjoyed the explanation of getting to my entry for Feel the Heat, thanks for taking the time to read my blog. 

I’m looking forward to seeing all of your Hometowns’ in the next FM 🙂