I hatched a plan to shoot some of their fire effects stuff on a beach with a sunset as a backdrop. From my surfing days I knew that Saunton Sands in North Devon was a good bet as there's very little there that's flammable. Setting fire to stuff when you're a kid is fine, but not when you're a grown-up, apparently. 

The beach is miles long and if you walk for 15 minutes down the beach from the car park it's easy to get the whole place to yourself... I didn't fancy having a massive crowd gathering as the plan was to do some really big fire effects.

So with a clear bit of weather at the end of a rare heatwave I met with Steffi Höggerl 
and Dan Miethke and drove to the beach with an appointment with the sunset. 

My main concern was the relative brightness of the flames against the fading light of a rapidly darkening sky and balancing that with flash output from my remotes. That concern rapidly changed to wind speed. After a 240 mile drive I hoped that the breeze would not make the huge billowing fireballs to dangerous for Dan and Steffi to work with. Driving home with nothing was looking increasingly likely. 

As the sky darkened the wind speed dropped (relief) and we all worked like crazy to fine tune all the factors to generate the best shots. Shooting with the Nikon D4 motor drives on full whack to capture the somewhat unpredictable airborne fireballs in the wind I set about working with Dan and Steffi to shoot some decent compositions.

I actually revisited Dan and Steffi again in Bristol  to chip off some preparation shots and some portraits to round out the piece. Couldn't help but shoot some more of their extraordinary fire effects in an abandoned sports hall.

Dan and Steffi from Spark Fire Dance were easily two of the most professional people I've ever worked with. I was blown away by their meticulous preparation, the precision of their loading of various top secret fuel formulas and just how well we all worked together.