Thursday, January 19, 2012

Dancing Smoke

Actually, I should have called it Smoke Dancing with Photoshop, it would be more accurate. This is so simple to photograph, once you know how. There are quite a few variables for these shots. Aperture, synch speed with flash, ISO, distance of flash from smoke, distance of smoke from background… It is definitely better to take these shots in a large and draft free room. I have tried to do it in a bathroom with exhaust fan (my incense sticks stink!) but there was so much stray light bouncing all over the place that the background was grey no matter how much I choked down the side shields on my flash gun. Out to the garage I went. What a difference the large space makes! Background was so black it didn’t need any retouching and I had a space to move the flash around. It is fun to find all sorts of shapes in these smoke photographs.

Doesn't it look like spine and a skul?

I see hummingbird head.


1 comment:

Karli @ The Bonnie 5 said...

OK, I couldn't wait! I HAD to check these out. WOW...you nailed these shots!! :-) Oh, they are just wonderful...you have to be so happy with them! Isn't it fun?! For your "hummingbird" shot... I totally see a seahorse! How cool! And I absolutely see the spine and skull!

I had my husband do my whole setup (I hate fiddling with off camera flash - I'm no good with electronic gizmos)... and I just clicked away! Oh, and I think I forgot to tell you, he held a flashlight pointed at the smoke so I could have something to focus on.

Also... I apologize. I sent you a screen shot of how I did the colored smoke, and I forgot to resize for web - ugh! That was probably a pretty large file - oops!

Really great job on these shots! They look amazing! :-)