Rod Evans, Shower of Power (Single Shot 2018)

I took my 360 camera and some steel wool out to my front yard and this was the result. The camera I use is the 'Insta360 ONE' which has two fisheye lenses that capture the entire 360 environment. Software then stitches the two hemispheres together to create a full 360 degree photo which can then be distorted and manipulated to create some crazy imagery. I placed the camera on the ground about 2 metres away from me and set it to a 15 sec countdown timer which gave me time to find my position and have the steel wool burning and spinning by the time the camera shutter released. This is a 20 sec exposure. I took the image and distorted it in 'Insta360 Studio' to produce this tiny planet effect. The tool I use to spin steel wool is basically an egg whisk attached to skipping/jump rope cable. I use a jump rope because the handle has a ball-bearing where the cable joins to it which makes for blister-less spinning. I can't tell you how much skin I took off my fingers in the past by spinning with a rope or dog leash. Ouch. The handle and ball-bearing really is a skin-saver.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.