Nov 10, 2008

Shidoni's Color Scapes


Shidoni Foundry Metal Work Shapes

Shidoni Foundry, a fascinating photo adventure, is located in Tesuque, NM. With a museum, a yard full of unique shapes, and deep fascination of a roaring, hot metal pouring room, the foundry is a mecca for photographers.
Some 20 of us spent an excited Saturday wandering Shidoni. It was like we were on some other planet...

Pouring Hot Metal
Metal workers, clad in metallic heat reflection gear, seemed ghostly shapes from a science fiction novel. Were they really Klingons?




Shidoni Foundry Metal Retrieval

Here we've just retrieved a red hot iron cask full of flaming, molten metal. It's interesting ~ the man on the left, although some distance from the cask, reflects lots of heat.
Here's a close up ~ they set the cask on a base to cool slightly. I find it fascinating that flames are coming up off the liquid metal.




Shidoni Foundry Metal Cooling

Notice the cooler cask rim after workers set it in the crane-mounted pouring device. It's only the second pour for this set of shapes. I was lucky enough to catch a splatter shot - don't you love the flaming hot metal streaking away across the sand below? The roaring sound of the heater drowned any talk within earshot - unless shouted!




Shidoni Foundry Metal Pouring

It's almost like Fourth of July fireworks; oops, really, it's just some Klingon warship factory. Wouldn't want to get one of those flaming metal streaks caught in an open top boot...

We've seen how metal figures are cast at Shidoni's Foundry. Now, let's look at physical manifestations of this incredible process.

Outdoor Shapes
Outdoor figures seem from other worlds ~ yet with their own picturesque beauty.
From an eagle in a pond fishing, to a red box, to an abstract silver figure, then another dark, distant eagle... Shidoni’s yard is fascinating! Would beings from another world cheer?
Our image is a high dynamic range (HDR) mid-afternoon composite.
Our poster is color-coordinated - more subtle, pastel colors are chosen from within the image to create a complementary boundary.

Was this art or science fiction? The entire pouring shoot took about five minutes.

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