See, Hear and Speak no Evil

Yesterday, after spending the weekend hanging around my flat I figured it was about time that I stepped outside and saw so light that wasn't generated by electrons hitting a phosper screen. I set out with my camera gear and just went for a walk around the local area. I visited places that I'd already been - the Three Brooks Nature Area and the local lake but didn't really find any inspiration. My infrared photos of the lake didn't come out that well and the butterfly that I saw and rushed to take a picture of flew away before I could figure out why my camera wasn't turning on when I flicked the switch. (I never did - the battery was ok - It just decided to stay off for no apparent reason.) About the most interesting thing that happened was seemingly being scolded by a squirrel for scaring it as I walked through the trees. It hung upside down on the trunk at around thigh level, staring and chittering violently at me as if to say 'idiot, I was forraging there', before scampering off up into the foliage where there was no hope of getting a good picture. Even the ducks weren't interested in the bread thrown at them although it appeared they had more important things on their mind as they seemed to be going through their courting rituals.

About the only thing that appeared to come out ok was play photo that I took based on something I saw in one of my photography magazines about faking multiple exposures. I figured I'd see if I could get anything that looked remotely reasonable and it didn't turn out bad although I've blown all the highlights accidently which I thinks adds to it looking more faked which is bad. I also obviously was not around objects that were unaffected by the wind so my 3 1 second exposures suffer from a bit of blur in localised areas of the background. Since I believe that this is the first image of me on this site (apart from my avatar) I guess that makes it slightly different.

See, Hear and Speak no Evil: Three exposures combined to minic the phrase "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".See, Hear and Speak no Evil: Three exposures combined to minic the phrase "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".

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Pat from Canvey's picture

Learn to live with Disappointment

I've had one of those weekends too. But I like the above picture. The middle you looks a bit worried. Were you in danger of overbalancing?One of my melts on a fourth time in the kiln just to smooth the edges, decided to explode outwards and proceeded to slightly melt off the edges of the shelf. As to why this happened, your guess is as good as mine. I now have to think of a creative way to use up the six pieces because I really like the pattern and after so much work,I want to have something I can show. Another developed a huge bubble off centre while the pattern of white and blue pie shaped pieces was based on a centre point. I brought the kiln up to temperature again and burst the bubble only to find that it had left a huge hole in the melt. So nothing ventured, I chopped up some orange, green and clear pieces and dumped them in the hole while the kiln was at 930 deg centigrade. OK, I am making progress,but-- putting it back in the kiln this morning to allow some much smaller bubbles to burst and flatten, what do I find when I peeked in the kiln whilst venting it, that melt has split appart too. I did bring the kiln up to temperature very slowly this time because of my prior experience outlined above so who knows why I am getting this happen now and particularly with such explosive force that the pieces separate outwards. The kiln shelves were dried at 260 deg cent. so it wasn't due to moisture from the shelf. Any chemists out there, does whiting explode when heated to 960 deg cent. I had started to fill some small gouges in my kiln shelves with a whiting paste dried and then sanded before applying shelf primer.

Pat from Canvey's picture

Whiting or calcium carbonate

I think I answered my own question. Calcium carbonate releases carbon dioxide on heating (to above 825 °C in the case of CaCO3), to form calcium oxide.
CaCO3 → CaO + CO2
So I believe my bubble was due to the release of carbon dioxide. Answer, buy some new kiln shelves to use for heating above 825 deg cent as in combing and pot melts.