The last of today's smoke + glass experiments

[Manfred M]

No water and stemware in this shot; just five crystal spheres and the smoke machine...

[billtils]

My personal taste is on the clear side so I've not commented on any of your smoke series - but I do like this one!

[Manfred M]

Thanks Bill - the main reason for doing this series of images is that I am looking creating some works to go into some shows at the end of the summer and early fall. I'm trying to change things up a little from my usual "clean and bright" approach.

A bit more review and clean up and I can print them over the next few weeks and get them to the framer in August and have them in hand for early September.

[mugge]

There is a line about the middle that is not quite right. The image is divided into two the top half has the smoke and the bottom half has none.
Cheers Ole

[Manfred M]

There is a line about the middle that is not quite right. The image is divided into two the top half has the smoke and the bottom half has none.
Cheers Ole

I agree about the line where the horizontal and vertical surfaces meet on the right hand side. I messed up the blend and have spent some time cleaning up that part of the image. I find it works better now, but may need another hour or so of work before I do a print.

The reason you see smoke in the top half is that this is the light source and the way to light the smoke is to back-light it. There is lots of very subtle smoke on the bottom, but because that area is dark, the smoke is far more subtle and almost invisible. That's just the way that light / dark and smoke interact.

This is the updated shot.

[mugge]

Much better. The transition of the two halves is controlled on the right side but I think the quite prominent horizontal line on the left side should be reduced somewhat, especially the line crossing the sphere.
Cheers Ole

[Manfred M]

Much better. The transition of the two halves is controlled on the right side but I think the quite prominent horizontal line on the left side should be reduced somewhat, especially the line crossing the sphere.
Cheers Ole

I disagree Ole and in fact I now find that the transition on the right hand side goes too far and I need to roll that back to anchor the scene better. The right side almost looks like the scene is floating in space.

I'm not shooting this on a "sweep" so the hard transition is an important compositional element.