Smoke photography is a technique I have seen in workshops, but not tried at home. In its simplest form, it is photographing wisps of smoke. From a practical point of view, it is a much different beast trying to get the smoke to behave the way you would like. In other words, you have to control as many variables as possible.
When things go according to plan, and you feel a little creative in Photoshop, here is the result:
For the photographers in the crowd, here is the set up:
The camera is set up approximately 8 feet away from the incense, and the incense is approximately 3 feet away from the background. It is set up this way to enable the flash and reflector to blast the incense with light, but keep any spill light from hitting the camera or background.
The camera was set on manual, manual focus, ISO 200, aperture of f8, and shutter speed of 1/100 sec. The flash was also set on manual, 1/2 power, and fired with remote triggers. I tethered the MacBook Pro to the camera using Lightroom 5. This was the first time I tethered a laptop to the camera and was very happy with the result, instant feedback on a decent sized screen.
The most difficult part of the setup was controlling the air flow. I was set up in the garage, so there was a fair amount of air flow. Air flow from side to side was Ok, as it was within the focus area. Air flow from front to back would mean that some of the smoke would be out of focus.
It did not take long to understand how the smoke generally behaved, and when to fire the shutter. Here is a typical shot that I thought had potential to work on in Photoshop.
Once in Photoshop, a few quick steps such as a rotation clockwise, colourize the smoke, and clean up the smoke a little, and this is the end result.
Doesn't even look like the same image, does it? Once you get used to the routine, then you can try mirroring the effect, like this:
The image at the top of this blog entry was given the same treatment. That image was a composite of a single image, mirrored 4 ways.
You can also change the background from black to white (no colour added). Here is a before and after:
There were several images taken over the course of the shoot that resembled faces. I caught this one right away, although Mary Ann didn't see it quite the same way.
Depending on how creative you feel, the possibilities are endless. There are many more images here to play with, I'll save those for a rainy day.
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Thanks for reading...
Mark
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