Metal/Glass

Lighting glass

Due to climate change, polar bears and other arctic animals have become trapped in their own ecosystem as the increasing water temperatures melt the ice beneath their feet.

The U.S. Geological Survey predicts that the warming of sea ice will lead to the loss of two-thirds of the world's polar bears by 2050. During the warm summer months, bears can be stranded on land until ice forms again in the fall or winter. While on land the bears eat little to nothing, scavenging for carcasses and bird eggs, and sometimes resorting to cannibalism just to stay alive. 

Lighting Diagram

For this assignment I wanted a dark rim on the glass jar that contained the polar bear and his icy perch. I set up a couple pieces of plexi propped against one of the wooden tables in the studio. After attaching a blue gel to one of the strobes, Tatiana and I placed it behind the plexi so it would shine through onto the subject. We went through a lot of trial and error before we could get the color of the background to a deep "Arctic" blue. After that, we began setting fires. 

At first the fire looked pretty terrible. It was kind of pink and blurry. After  asking for advice from Rita and Allison, we learned that we would needed to turn off the mod. lights so that they wouldn't light the scene on the longer exposures I was doing to allow the fire to be captured. After that the shoot went pretty smoothly.

A couple more photos...

There were times when the snoot got a little tickling from the two-foot flames we created. Something I learned: Rita really loves fire.