.Paul_Gerritsen

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Here is another shot inside my company. We have a CNC plasma cutter that make holes like a knife in butter. Plasma cutting is a process that is used to cut steel and other metals of different thicknesses (or sometimes other materials) using a plasma torch. In this process, an inert gas (in some units, compressed air) is blown at high speed out of a nozzle; at the same time an electrical arc is formed through that gas from the nozzle to the surface being cut, turning some of that gas to plasma. The plasma is sufficiently hot to melt the metal being cut and moves sufficiently fast to blow molten metal away from the cut. This image is of course heavily worked up, otherwise I would end up with just a flash of light in complete darknes. So, I combined 3 shots to make this picture. The composition however is real. I shot this with a 300 mm lens, to get "near" the torch and to compress the image so that the operator Jeroen drew closer. I hope you enjoy my effort which was about as difficult as it can get.