I have been asked many times how I manage to take my smoke photos. I believe that everyone interested should try on their own to take beautiful abstract smoke photographs. The following will dramatically improve your smoke photography and allow you to avoid some of the factors that result in poor smoke photgraphs:
- Correct lighting - you want to light the smoke, but keep the light from reaching your lens (lensflare) and the background. Especially when using a black background, light which reaches your background will result in less dramatic and clean-looking pictures because the background will have definition and take away from the smoke subject.
- Place the flash or studio flash set-up to the side
- Use cardboard or other surfaces to keep light from scattering and allow the light to propagate in a "slice"
- Do not overexpose or underexpose - this takes some practice, trial and error, or a good external lightmeter
- My initial smoke pictures were taken with a Canon 550 EX which was placed to the side of the smoke
- More recently I have been using a Novatron Studio Flash system with much more power
- Visible smoke - the best source for safe smoke which is very visible is probably an incense-stick. Some smoke is mostly white, while other types are colored or black.
- Choose a background which allows for the smoke to stand out (black for white smoke and vice versa) and covers the entire background visible in your photo
- Open windows frequently to clear out previous smoke so as to have more defined difference between the concentrated smoke trail and the surrounding air
- You can intercept the smoke with all sorts of objects to create pictures like this
- Focus - it is not easy to focus on moving smoke. By using a small aperture you give yourself a range within which the smoke trail will be sharp
- Manual focus is often best, but prefocusing on an object at the same distance helps
- Use a small aperture to alllow a bigger DOF for sharp pictures of moving smoke
- In order to capture the moving smoke you also need a fast shutter speed, so the need for a fast shutter speed and a small aperture make a strong light source necessary
- Colored smoke - sometimes coloring or duo-toning smoke can be interesting
- Incense smoke, while often perceived as black or white, can contain interesting colors on ist own. Example
- You can also try using colored smoke, but be sure it is not toxic
- The easiest way to achive colored smoke is by postprocessing your smoke images in Photoshop
- Try inverting your pictures in Photoshop
You can view my own abstract smoke photographs here. While I use Photoshop often for my smoke photography (to invert photos and adjustments levels), I am not a fan of heavy image manipulation. I find it more interesting to have the smoke surprise me with ist own interesting shapes. This folder contains abstract smoke images which were created by taking a smoke photo and mirroring it in Photoshop. The resulting abstracts resemble ink blot (Rohrschach) tests. I really like how different viewer perceive these smoke abstracts differently.
Good luck with taking your own smoke pictures. Be warned however, once you start taking smoke photgraphs you will most likely be hooked for life...