First smoke image

[Manfred M]

I also understand you to a point, Manfred. My suggestion is that Chauncey might come up with a look that he likes using his built-in flash that is not the traditional look, perhaps in combination with his continuous light source placed on the side as in his photo. He certainly posts a lot of photos that are far from traditional, so the possibility that he would arrive at a very different approach to photographing smoke that he enjoys is quite fathomable in my mind.

Mike; I also agree with you, to a point. Chauncey asked for advice on how to get this to work for him, so as someone who has successfully done smoke shots, I reported what worked for me, and what did not, and why.

As for experimentation; I totally agree with you, but throw in one qualification. There I turn to the masters of the past; regardless if it was Picasso, van Gogh or Henry Moore; they all started off quite mainstream and started (successfully) experimenting after they mastered the basics.

I've seen a lot of a unsuccessful artists trying to do something non-mainstream from the start, but because they did not understand and master the basics, they generally turn out some rather uncompelling work. I suspect that there are exceptions, but I can't think of any offhand.

[Mike Buckley]

I agree with that, Manfred. I don't know the biographies of the master painters and sculptors but I can't think of a master photographer that didn't master the basics before moving on successfully to making photos in a new style. Having said that, it can always be fun for some people to try creating new techniques before mastering old ones.

[chauncey]

I should have known that Manfred would have been the "been there, done that" guy...
yours are well done my friend.
To ease my mind...how long did it take you to get the technique down pat?
I took a couple more last evening while still using my side lighting and before reading your suggestions.



Am bullheaded enough to avoid the purchase of a flash unit just to shoot smoke pictures and will
continue side lighting with these...http://www.amazon.com/Cree-18-Watt-D...words=cree+led

What I will do next time is rig up a snoot of some kind to focus the light a bit as it was very scattered.
I hoping that three of those bulbs will be enough.

If all else fails, they could be fake Aurora Borealis images.

PS...I know nothing about the Old Masters

[Mike Buckley]

If all else fails, they could be fake Aurora Borealis images.

It might or might not help you to know that that was the first thing that came to my mind upon seeing your first image.

Am bullheaded enough to avoid the purchase of a flash unit just to shoot smoke pictures

Ahem. Do you really believe that's the only use you'll have for it? Perhaps you'll enjoy using it to make your photos of orchids, not to mention any object in your home that you would want to photograph.

[Manfred M]

I should have known that Manfred would have been the "been there, done that" guy...
yours are well done my friend.
To ease my mind...how long did it take you to get the technique down pat?
I took a couple more last evening while still using my side lighting and before reading your suggestions.

All the shots I made for my smoke shots were done over about an hour or so max, so mastering the technique took just a few minutes.

I made these shots a couple of months after I had surgery on my foot, and I was still hobbling around on crutches and my foot was in a cast, so I was not capable of doing a lot of fiddling. If I recall correctly, I did a bit of adjustment of the strobe and softbox; the position (angle and distance from the smoke source). I also did a few shots to nail the exposure; I used my f/1.8 50mm lens at f/16 to give me lots of DoF. As I was using incense sticks, I focused on the sticks and disconnected the autofocus. I did a bit of fiddling (probably 5 or 6 shots) to nail the exposure.

From there on in, I took lots (hundreds) of shots with me manipulating the smoke from some incense sticks. I would wave my hand and got the smoke to swirl. I took multiple shots. I stopped shooting when things got too smokey.

I worked the images later on, as I had time; playing with curves to isolate parts of the smoke that looked interesting and added colours or left things as shot. I only shot jpegs; I didn't need all the data that a raw file would give me.