Things have been a little quiet on this blog lately, but not so in my photo world. I’ve got a couple prospective assignments cooking up for later in the year, and perhaps a personal vacation that could result in some great photos, as well. More on those as they develop.

In the meantime, my better half recommended a bit of a challenge to keep me shooting every day — at least in February. Working a full-time job with overtime and planning a wedding while trying to shoot every single day for four weeks straight is going to be pretty difficult, but therein lies the virtue, eh? She’s given me a new concept or object to shoot every day, a single word, and it’s my choice as to how to interpret this. Today we begin with…

#1 Magnets

“Magnets. Simple enough, I suppose. At least it’s something concrete to show.” Such was my thought process when I read today’s idea. But I also didn’t want to start off on a lazy note, and I definitely wanted to avoid anything resembling a large red horseshoe. I like to think I have some semblance of creativity, after all.

So I went for the biggest magnet I know of — Earth. I lacked the budget for a satellite launch, even a modest one, but that’s just fine. I knew what I wanted to accomplish: Show the Earth’s magnetic field overlaid upon it.

Iron filings are what one will typically use to show a magnetic field, but if you had to today, where would you purchase yours? My solution was to buy some steel wool (surprisingly hard to find, and I had to rid it of the soap the manufacturer had seen to embed in the thing!) and chop it up. Suffice it to say, I’ll be picking steel splinters out of my hands for about a month.

“But Thomas,” I hear you protest, “steel wool is grey, and whatever you have used is white! Shenanigans, sir!” And to you, I reply, “Stop being so cynical.” It’s true — and I also knew that I wanted the planet to appear somewhat as it is; that is, suspended in dark space. But using dark steel on a dark background would be a pointless waste of time. My solution: Take a government photograph of the Earth, invert its colors in Photoshop (rendering the Earth a psychedelic purple and gold, with a white background), print it, toss the filings atop it, place a magnet of appropriate size and strength underneath the setup, and photograph from above. When I brought the final image into post, I inverted the colors again, and tada! Everything was as you see it here.

It’s far from perfect. It looks hurried and a little sloppy — because it is. If I had more time, I would have done a better job of it. But sometimes art must be rushed! I can’t spend any more time thinking about Magnets when I have tomorrow’s theme to think about…