One of the benefits that comes with belonging to a camera club is that occasionally you get given the opportunity to shoot somewhere where you would not normally be able to.

At the 2021 Photographic Society of New Zealand National Convention in Christchurch one of the offsite options was entitled industrial photography. We were taken to a fabrication factory that was closed for the day but where a number of staff had come in to use the tools that they do every day for us to photograph the sparks that they generate.

All that was asked in return was some images that they could use in their marketing and promotion. (the final image on this page is the one that presented to them).

In many of these shots they were deliberately making more sparks than would happen in normal use. Obviously having pieces of molten metal flying around is potentially dangerous so we will given plenty of advice of where to stand and importantly not to stand.

We were also told to focus the camera without looking through the lens as some of the bright light particularly with the welding torches could damage your eyes.

This was a perfect opportunity to try long exposure to capture the sparks and flight. The images were captured on a tripod at 1/10s at f16.

I did want to capture one particular image for the set I was submitting so I took long light stand and a Lume cube so that I could light up the worker. The Lume cube is pretty indestructible so I knew that it could handle the situation.

The final image of the welder was actually a composite of three images put together so that we could maximise the effect of the sparks.