On the evening of Wednesday 22 January, we had an outdoor practical evening scheduled to photograph wire wool spinning.

And fortuitously, despite rain earlier in the day, the weather in the evening was dry and calm (if a tad chilly) – ideal conditions for our planned activity.

So we all turned up with our cameras, tripods, and remotes to experience the challenges, failures, and successes of long exposure photography.  And experts Kingsley and Amy Summers from Milton Keynes revisited the club to show us how this stuff is done and provide the necessary subject matter.  (They previously ran a workshop for us in April 2019.)

We started with a presentation from Kingsley.  He told us a little about his own photographic journey.  He first picked up a camera as a teenager and taught himself photography, moving up the camera ranges and eventually progressing to his Canon 5D Mk III.  He has not yet “gone mirrorless”.

He likes using photography to show things that the eye can’t easily see, such as the Milky Way.  So he likes astrophotography.  And he also likes time-lapse photography (he showed us a splendid time-lapse video of the Northern Lights).

He mostly does night photography, plus some sunrises and sunsets, and he is now exploring the challenges and possibilities of drone photography.

Kingsley also showed us a selection of his photos (including moonscapes, aurora and other astro, wire wool spinning, and light painting) and more time-lapse videos.  (More of his work can be found on YouTube.)

Finally, Kingsley gave us some instruction on the best camera settings for photographing wire wool spinning.  (We needed of course to shoot in manual mode.)  For the uninitiated, wire wool spinning involves stuffing a whisk with fine steel wool, setting it on fire, and then whirling it around in a circular motion while others take long-exposure photographs of the resultant light trails.  Kingsley advised starting off with settings of F2.8, 10 seconds, and ISO 100.

After that we moved outside for the practical part of the evening.  We set up our cameras and tripods and dialled in the appropriate settings.  Kingsley and Amy provided the necessary pyrotechnics and we took the shots.

With help from the Kingsley and Amy we reviewed our images as we went along, made any adjustments required to capture better images, and took more shots.

Their expert assistance meant we all managed to get some decent pictures (including a few using phones), learned a bit more about using our cameras in manual mode, and had a jolly good time.  And, apart from the wire wool, nothing caught fire!