Abstract images of smoke appear to be somewhat of a fad at the minute, and if you perform an Internet search for abstract images of smoke you'll find many of them.
This should not prevent you from giving this type of photography a test. Done correctly, you can produce very beautiful and unique images which are worthy of framing and hanging on your wall or someone else!
If you are interested to try this type of abstract photography yourself then the following workflow and setup that I use you well on your way to get some amazing shots.
What You Will Need
Room with windows
Tripod
Off the coast of camera flash
Remote cable release
Incense sticks
Black cloth
The best room
Setup in a room with windows that you open Windows now and again to allow smoke clear.
In addition, to ensure that there is no messy nasty open doors and that people will not walk in and out of the room. The smoke is extremely sensitive to the slightest change in the circulation of air, even your breath a few feet of distance! I use the kitchen as I have a quick access to the water when I need extinguish the incense stick, there is also no smoke detector here!
You may find that once you turn on the stick of incense smoke tends to gravitate towards the bedroom window, even when the window is closed. If this is the case you can use this to your advantage by shooting parallel to the window, so that the smoke moves across the field of the camera. A point worth mentioning here is that you do not need a dark room to do this kind of shots. Some tutorials on the site Web of State that you made, but I found this is not the case if you close the curtains on your windows when taking shots.
Establishment of equipment
Set your black cloth to a piece of cardboard or draped it in a box. This will be the background of your images. You can use any type of dark matter, but you want it to be as non-reflective as possible. Black velvet is supposed to be the best, but I find that you can get excellent results, just a simple black t-shirt.
Setup the camera on the tripod with the stuff in about one to two feet away depending on the lens you use. Remember, you want enough depth of field to account for the slight movement in smoke you get between the camera and the background. Set manual focus camera with an opening of f11 or f16, shutter of about 180 speed. This is not critical that flash now effectively become your shutter speed. Place the flash off the coast on one side, pointing across the field of the camera. You can add a Flash crafted snout to keep stray light from the lens and the background. Set the flash to half-full power as a starting point.
To set your focus, place a leader vertically on the point where your smoke will be increased and the discussion on this topic. By putting emphasis on the smoke itself is virtually impossible and you disappoint only.
Taking the shots
light the incense stick and allow to settle for a few seconds, then watching habits and some executives of fire. Checking the shots on the camera display to check exposure. Don't rely on the histogram but rather check the brightness of the images themselves. If they are too bright or too dark, and then adjust the flash output accordingly. Once you are satisfied with the exhibition then watch patterns forming through the view finder and get far.
You must stop all a few minutes to open the Windows to allow smoke clearing before starting again.
Publishing coups
Once I have some shots that I am pleased with, the first thing to do is check that the background is completely black. If any part of the background is visible I duplicate the background layer simply and paint on the offending pixels with a black brush. Once it's on the way to all sorts of adjustments can be made. Two of the most popular are reversing the image or the smoke coloring. Reversing the image transforms the light dark pixels and lights dark pixels.
Incidentally, it is a very good way to check if the context has been exposed as the pixels will appear as black spots on a white background. Once the image is upside smoke plumes can then be stained by adding a new layer, affecting its color mode with low opacity and paint on the colourful plumes with different brushes. variations of this technique are endless and you can literally spend hours this! Staining technique also work in non-inverted as well s the images too.
I urge you to give this technique a go, it's actually quite easy and with a little patience, you can create beautiful images.
Brian Davidson - landscape, macro and nature photographer
Web site - http://chasethelight.co.uk
Blog - http://photography-ctl.blogspot.com/
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