I spent this past weekend playing around with shooting smoke. I’ve seen photos of this and wanted to give it a try.
My first task was to find some incense. I stopped by my local mall and found plenty at the local Spencer Gifts store. I bought one package of Coconut and one package of Black Cherry. For my setup I used a black backdrop (black blanket purchased at Walmart $2.99), small table to set the incense on and some lights.
The biggest challenge for me was getting the lighting right. I started off using a small softbox at full power set at a 90 degree angle to the camera. I found that the light would spread too much and would spill onto my background. So I quickly made a cardboard snoot for my Canon 430EX strobe. I then positioned it at a 90 angle to the camera aimed directly at the smoke, wallah it worked. My camera was set to it’s max sync speed of 1/200 second and found f13 to work the best. Using a tripod and remote trigger, I was able to work with the smoke to make different patterns and snap the photo, I could have used a helper or a longer cable on my trigger. I found that the room in my basement would fill up with smoke real fast. Even though it was a sweet coconut smell it was a bit too strong. When I cracked the window it created just enough draft that the smoke would not cooperate. I was forced to take some unwanted breaks to vent the room out.
For processing I originally wanted to work with these images in Photoshop CS3 but after playing around with some settings in Adobe Lightroom I was able to get the look I wanted. Using presets I downloaded I was able to invert the image above and play around with the color settings to get the desired look. My next task it to try to do the same thing in Photoshop, something that will take me a bit longer since I’m new and uncomfortable using CS3.
You can see more examples in my flickr account. Click here to view set.
Canon XTi * Canon EF-24-105mm f/4.0L lens * ISO 100 * 1/200 second * f/13
