The sparks came first.
Of the three lighting elements within the shot, there's most potential for the wire wool to go wrong and render your whole exposure unusable. You never quite know how it'll disintegrate and no matter how well you thread it there's always the chance it will detach from your cable and soar, whole, straight through your composition; worse still it might soar away from your shot and remove any opportunity for an amazing freak capture. That's why, for me, igniting the wool is always top of the list.
Next up was the light to the building's frame. Pink, to contrast with the blue of the orb to follow. It was colouring the framework that took the time: after spending an age on pre-visualisation and planning, the shutter clicked open moments after the pubs kicked out, every passing pair of headlights necessitating a pause in my proceedings. I walked forwards from just right of the camera away into the corner of the structure. Every four steps brought a new burst of flash, firing backwards at framework I'd already passed to avoid silhouetting myself.
Last up, the orb. Measuring a mere 9ft across it cast its blue light further still, lending the corrugated ceiling an indigo glow and presenting a neat reflection in the oily puddle that I'd trodden carefully around so often on my walkthroughs.
Single, eight-minute exposure. JPG from the cam + watermark
