The Art of Rock Balancing by Michael Grab

Twistedsifter.com ^ | January 2, 2013 | Michael Grab

[Twotone]

Michael Grab is an artist that has been ‘rock balancing‘ since 2008. Much of his recent work has been done around the Boulder, Colorado area. Grab finds the process both spiritual and therapeutic. On his site gravityglue.com, Grab explains:

[Twotone]

This looks too impossible to be real. But it is certainly interesting & there are other interesting links at the bottom of this page. Something a little different for a Saturday morning.

[Paladin2]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUOuTB-0aBI

[mylife]

Nothing beats God's hand.

[Drawn7979]

rock balancing? i don't even know what that is.

[Paladin2]

Somebody has a lot of free time:

[mylife]

[mylife]

[Twotone]

Now that’s talent! ;-)

[AuntB]

“Nothing beats God’s hand.”
You got that right. Check this one from nature in Southern Idaho. I used to play at the base of it when I was a kid.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/23567

[TEXOKIE]

Randomly pinging some of my FRiends...this is truly awesome! (This is not a ping list!)

[raybbr]

The guy's got nothing on my eight year old...

[Flick Lives]

Much of his recent work has been done around the Boulder, Colorado area.

Sounds like the right place to be.

[Moltke]

Nice. I saw an article on him a few years ago.

Patience, concentration, a steady hand. We had games like that when I was a kid. Wooden pieces, though, not rock.

[ansel12]

I have seen this and it can be appealing, seeing it outdoors is better than seeing a photograph.

[Gadsden1st]

Saw this on a California Beach. I could get two. Three...forget it. Its witchcraft.

[Paladin2]

I think a very fast shutter speed helps ;-)

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

I think a very fast shutter speed helps ;-)

Not so, at least all the flowing water shots where shot w/ minimum aperture and very slow shutter speed. That's how you get that ethereal, kinda blurry, kinda foggy look over the falling water with a very deep depth of field. It's basically a time exposure letting the moving water blur. It's an old trick, I think it goes all the way back to Ansel Adams.

You have to override all the automatic settings on your fancy digital SLR to get the effect.

Regards,
GtG

[Paladin2]

My thinking was a sharp focus with a big aperture to make the background fuzzy.

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

My thinking was a sharp focus with a big aperture to make the background fuzzy.

If you go wide open on aperture, your "shutter speed" is going to speed up to the max to prevent over exposure burning out all the detail. At fast effective shutter speeds you'll see all the little droplets of water frozen in the air which is kind of a cool effect if that's what you are looking for. But to get that lazy, dreamy, kind of fuzzy fog effect you need to slow the shutter speed down as much as you can and use a minimum aperture to get maximum depth of field in sharp focus with out over exposing the entire composition. Try it both ways and see which way you like best.

Regards,
GtG

PS I've done it a lot with film cameras but I've never tried it with a digital SLR, it should work the same way, no?

[Alamo-Girl]

Fascinating. Thanks for the ping!