swirls and circuits

We tried some swirly projects at photography club this time, that weren't entirely successful but have potential.

There just wasn't enough light to get a crisp clear focus of the food colouring being dropped into water. Some cameras managed to capture the mushroom shaped first clouds and following swirling shapes but my Sony and the Nikon's just weren't happy. Obviously the idea is to crop in tight on the shapes leaving no jar visible but mine here are just too blurred.

Next we tried to capture smoke from 3 distinguished matches against a black background ( a piece of card leaning on an easel) It took a lot of experimenting but the trick is to shake the matches out rather than blow them, you get more smoke that way and to pre-focus on an object just in front of the card first (a hand is good) and then move that away and quickly make the smoke. A spotlight needs to be directed on the area that the smoke will billow to really bring out the shapes. Again my camera wasn't playing but some of the group got some beautiful clear swirls.

Finally in contrast to all the swirls a member of the group had brought in some circuit boards. I was too tired by that point to really see the shots but I'll defiantly have another go with these, some of the group got some dynamic shots of them and as one member said you can get a very striking 'cityscape' feel with them held vertically.

Sometimes the atmosphere in the club is electric with fabulous pictures captured as members boundaries are pushed but this time the atmosphere was strained. They didn't really enjoy the projects, couldn't get cameras to play ball and I haven't received one excited e-mail with pictures from the night. But thats okay. Having spent years in the company of other creative people I know how just one un-sucessful attempt at creativity can make artists want to throw away paint brushes, photographers hang up cameras and crafts people throw scissors, fabric, papers and needles to the four winds. Theres nothing like a duff piece of work for convincing you that you have no talent, your waisting your time and who did you think you were in the first place for even trying!
But we live to try again, we drag ourselves out of the doldrums and have another go and when we do its very often magical....