Smoke

[KelliShaver]

I got this idea from a friend of mine. After seeing a couple of his photos, I just had to give it a try.

Smoke from a stick of incense against a black background, with up-lighting between the smoke and the backdrop.

http://www.kellishaver.com/misc/smoke6a.jpg

[Carzee]

You could print it up on scented paper...

Cool shapes. What shutter speed? 8s?

[Caitlyn]

I love this! I keep wanting to try it, but I don't smoke! And most smokers rooms are too smokey... thanks for the inscence idea... I hope it wouldn't be too tacky for me to try it now?

Great shot all the same!

[KelliShaver]

Thanks for the feedback. :)

I don't think it'd be tacky a bit, considering I swiped the inspiration from someone else, who swiped it from someone else, etc. etc. Well, OK. It would be no more tacky than me doing it ;). It's a lot of fun to do.

I had the world's cheapest setup ever. I had black cloth draped over a board then lighting coming up between the backdrop and the smoke from an up-turned aquarium hood that had nice reflectors inside it. I don't have an external flash yet, so I was forced to do this and use the on-camera flash (eeek). Then, in post-processing, I adjusted levels to put the black point back to where it needed to be (on-camera flash had it way off) and upped the contrast by about 20%.

Camera settings were 1/60s exposure, f/5.6 @ ISO 100

Oh well, the setup wasn't much to look at, but it's fun to get creative and try and make stuff work uwhen you don't have expensive equipment laying around to do it for you.

[jimmywires]

real nice good job

[Mannytkd]

Hi there,

Try using a piece of black velvet cloth, while velvet is smoth one way and rough another way, to true black have the fibres going upwards and when the flash hits the end fibres you get pure black while if the fibres are going down you will get a sheen, i used to used one for head and shoulder portraits, trust me it work a treat if done correct especialy for the above kind-of-work, i'm going to try it myself?

[Michaelmjc]

Thats a sweet idea man, post some others!

[Michaelmjc]

Well I tried it as well, ALOT harder than it looks like it would be. These are the best I could come up with. I'll try again later on.

[skade]

Really nice! I like em!

[erics]

Well I tried it as well, ALOT harder than it looks like it would be. These are the best I could come up with. I'll try again later on.

I like the second one - the smoke almost looks like a small piece of writing and I find myself trying to form letters from the swirls!

[Michaelmjc]

I too liek the second one, I was just dissapointed with the background. It looks very odd.

[Michaelmjc]

Here is another good one I took. I'm not sure which one I like best, so I'll post all three.

[Michaelmjc]

One more

[JoseC]

I like the idea and the result you got.
Its relaxing.
Rgds
Jose

[Mannytkd]

If you can try lowering the power of your flash output for a more sombre look, if yoo can't put grease proof paper over the falsh lens to soften it?

[Kerbouchard]

The first one is very cool. Simple, clear. Great job.

[thomascanty]

That looks very cool! Great idea.

[sixshot]

So cool. I was looking for letter in a few of these.

[MAGIcAL]

Tried my hand at it. Instead of incense, used a candle and blew it so that a trail of smoke will form. Had to do it several times before I was able to get this... :lol:

[cmM]

that is waaay cool!

hmmm now I'm getting ideas... I think I'll burn a tire or something, just to have enough smoke :-P