Fire Spin and Windmill

I cropped the first one quite a bit, but this is kind of what I had planned for the final composition.  If I was going to do the whole shoot I would also paint the windmill with a flashlight in one of the frames so it would stand out more.  I'm definitely open to any other suggestions on lighting the windmill if you have them.  I also circled the North Star so you can imagine how the star trail patterns will look.

This was a test shot while setting up for a star trail pic and I never

planned on anyone seeing it. By the time I got done setting it all up

and figuring out how I thought I wanted to shoot the sixty 2 minute

frames to stack in Photoshop, it was pretty late, I was tired, and

most of all, I thought the sparks I generated dominated the picture

too much and the final picture just wouldn't look as good as I had

hoped. I also thought there weren't enough stars showing up, thanks

to some new lights up north, but I don't think that's the case after

seeing it on my pc monitor. So I said the heck with it and packed

everything up. Now, I'm not so sure I shouldn't have stayed and

finished the shoot. I'm posting this and one below for suggestions

and honest opinions if you think it would be worth the effort of me

going back and finishing the job. You think it would help if I cut

down on the fire spin time? Please, be brutal. I'd love to hear any

ideas, including, "you'd be wasting your time", if that's what you think.

PDE

nice shoot, well done

They are both nice, but I like the second one you added better, the fire spin dominance is more subdued in the second one and I like the stars and overall perspective better. So how did you make the fire spin? Looks like you're twirling something on a rope but not sure what it is?

A very interesting and effective shot.  I like the second one better, too - better perspective and aesthetically more pleasing - but both are fascinating.  I'm glad you shared it.

Thank you all for the comments.  If I do it again with the 2 hour trails, I will have something like the bottom pic for the composition.  The only thing I don't like is having to stand so far away from the windmill while swinging the lit steel wool on the end of a cable.  I think it looks better throwing sparks on the windmill and it also lights it up, but there's too much empty space on the sides if I stand close to it like in the first pic and still leave in the sky high above like in the second....don't want a vertical pano shot.  Maybe if I can figure a proper way to light the windmill with fire instead of a flashlight like I was going to do....

Hmmm.  An idea just came to me.  Maybe pour a flammable liquid that floats on top of the water in the tank in front of the windmill, like gasoline, and light it.  That would be a lot better than painting it with a flashlight, right?  There's cattle in there, so need to make sure and not poison them.  I wouldn't need to put much in there and it would all burn away, so that would probably be ok.  I'll definitely do some research beforehand if I go that route.

I agree with you that the sparks might dominate the image and the windmill is too unlit. So here's my idea: is there any way to put flammable material on the windmill's wheel itself and turn it? It doesn't need to be sparkling, so turning speed won't be so important. That way you'll have a well lit windmill, a fire circle that will mirror the stars and less of a fire hazard :)

Thanks a lot for your input, Andrei.  Since there's usually no wind at night, at least I would have to count on that being the case for the time I am there to shoot, then you are right.  I would have to put a flammable liquid on the blades and light that, instead of using something like lit steel wool if it was windy.  That is an idea I hadn't thought of....did think about the steel wool attached to a blade if it was windy.  A problem with doing that instead of me off to the side swinging a fire circle is, if I want to keep the star patterns like in the bottom pic, then it would be kind of bare on that side of the pic.  If I could get closer and low on the windmill, then I could fill the frame more with the windmill and still have the star pattern.  I could do that on any side of the windmill, but the south, obviously because of the water in my way.  But doing both might not be too bad of an idea.  I could do the fire spin to the side with lot less of a duration so it's not so dominating and also light the blades.....attached is a shot of less duration.  Need to think of a way to light it without it showing up in the pic.  I light the steel wool by just touching a 9 volt battery to it.  There's only a few small sparks going until the wind hits it from spinning it, so that works perfectly.  The other hurdle would be to get permission from my cousin to light his windmill on fire.  If it were mine, I'm not totally sure I would give it.:)  I need to just be able to count on a windy night with no clouds or moon, which is something pretty hard to do.  It's 150 miles away from me, so unfortunately I can't just go on any night I see that is happening.