The idea for the series started when he was looking for images of fire with a white background, for a project that he was working on. He couldn't find any suitable photographs, so he decided to create a handful of his own. He performed the shoot outside of his studio in Berkeley, where he experimented with fire quite frequently. For this shoot he practiced lighting different objects on fire and photographing them to see what effect they had. Prideuax even experimented with stencils to get the exact shapes that he wanted for this series know as 'Smoke and Fire.' He also explained that he took the photographs using a loading dock and small amounts of gas. With the exception of a bit of cleaning up here and there, the photographs seen above, have not been edited.

 

Rob Prideaux quoted the following about his series, in his blog....

 

“It’s a quest to shape one of the more uncontrollable phenomena in nature. “Yes, yes, CGI, illustration, I know. Dull. Not right. This is much more exciting … and a little malevolent.”

 

He also quoted the following about the gasoline used.....

 

“People get all uncomfortable once you mention gasoline explosions. However, the volume of fuel I’m using is in the millilitres. I guess without more explanation people imagine the kind of stuff you see in action movies. Which would be awesome, don’t get me wrong.”