An Unholy Pack

I must admit that this idea came from "Pushing the Envelope". Often, conceptual inspiration comes to my mind without warning. At other times, it comes from a challenge posed by others, which stimulates the creative juices.

As far as "Pushing the Envelope" was concerned, I accepted the challenge of putting a seemingly fragile bubble and a blazing flame into the same composition: two extremes and one challenge.

Conceptual photography can take many forms. It can also involve the elements of gold, wood, water, fire, and earth.

There is a question that keeps haunting me: "Does a flame have weight? If so, how much does it weigh?"

I do not have scientific instruments to study this question. After all, I am not a scientist, and in art I am not looking for evidence or proof, only the metaphors and motives presented in the picture.

I intended to put two extremes on the scale. On one side was the flame, and on the other side were the eyeballs.

All the props in the concept were made by me. The scale was a branch with coconut shells, which I hung from the branch with chains.

Making the flame was quite challenging. A flame lit with alcohol has a blue hue, which was not my ideal colour temperature. When I used cloth, it produced black smoke, which was also not the effect I wanted. Finally, I found that cotton soaked in cooking oil produced the longest-lasting flame and the right orange tone for my requirements.

“Does a flame have weight? If so, how much does it weigh?”

I placed a small piece of foil at the bottom of the coconut shell so that it would not burn the shell, and so I could continue to re-shoot whenever the effect was not satisfactory.

The light source was the large window in the studio. It was completely free.

I metered the flames and made sure I would not overexpose them; otherwise, the composition would be ruined.

After many attempts, I finally executed the idea.

Can you grasp the metaphor and motive of this composition?