Abstract images of smoke seem to be somewhat of a fad at the minute, and if you do a search on the Internet for abstract images of smoke you will find plenty of them.
This shouldn't stop you from giving this type of photography a try. Done correctly you can produce extremely beautiful and unique images that are worthy of framing and hanging on your wall or someone else's!
If you are interested in trying this type of abstract photography yourself then the following work flow and setup that I use will get you well on your way to getting some amazing shots.
What You Will Need
- Quiet room with windows
- Tripod
- Off camera flash
- Remote cable release
- Incense sticks
- Black cloth
The Best Room
Setup in a room that has windows as you will need to open the windows now and again to allow the smoke to clear.
Also, ensure that there are no nasty drafts from open doors and that people will not be walking in and out of the room. Smoke is extremely sensitive to the slightest change in air movement, even your breath from a few feet away! I use the kitchen as I have quick access to water when I need to put the incense stick out, there is also no smoke alarm in there!
You may find that once you light the incense stick that the smoke tends to gravitate towards the window in the room even when the window is shut. 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 camera's field of view. A point worth mentioning here is that you do not need a dark room to do these kind of shots. Some website tutorials state that you do but I have found this not to be the case if you close the curtains on your windows when taking the shots.
Setting Up The Equipment
Fix your black cloth to a piece of cardboard or drape it over a box. This will be the background for your images. You can use any type of black material 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 using a plain black T shirt.
Setup the camera on the tripod facing the cloth at about one to two feet away depending on the lens you are using. Remember, you want enough depth of field to account for the slight movement in smoke you will get between the camera and the background. Set the camera to manual focus with an aperture of f11 or f16 and a shutter speed of about 180. This isn't crucial as the flash now effectively becomes your shutter speed. Place the flash off to one side pointing across the camera's field of view. you may want to add a homemade snout to the flash to keep stray light away from the lens and background. Set the flash for half full power as a starting point.
To set your focus, place a ruler vertically on the point where your smoke will be rising and focus on this. Focusing on the smoke itself is next to impossible and will only frustrate you.
Taking The Shots
light the incense stick and allow it to settle for a few seconds, then watch for patterns and fire a few frames. Check the shots on the display of the camera to check exposure. Don't rely on the histogram but instead check the brightness of the images themselves. If they are too bright or too dark then adjust the flash output accordingly. Once you are happy with the exposure then watch for patterns forming through the view finder and shoot away.
You will need to stop every few minutes to open the windows and allow the smoke to clear before starting again.
Editing The Shots
Once I have a few shots that I'm happy with, the first thing I do is check that the background is completely black. If any part of the background is visible I simply duplicate the background layer and paint over the offending pixels with a black brush. Once this is out the way all manner of adjustments can be made. Two of the most popular are inverting the image and/or coloring the smoke. Inverting the image turns all dark pixels light and light pixels dark.
This incidently is a very good way of checking if any of the background has been exposed as the pixels will show up as black spots on the white background. Once the image is inverted the plumes of smoke can then be colored by adding a new layer, setting its mode to color with low opacity and painting over the plumes with different colored brushes. the variations for this technique are endless and you can literally spend hours doing this! The coloring technique also work s equally well on non inverted images too.
I urge you to give this technique a go, it's actually quite easy and with a bit of patience you can create some stunning images
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