smoke as "art" "Veiled Activity"

What lurks in a veil of smoke? Only YOU know...

 

Let me know what you see in this image, and what your thoughts are.

Thank yoou.

extremely pixelated and/or over sharpened. Other than the pixelation impacting the sharpness of your image I think the composition and coloration are great.

Well done

nice, seems a bit blurred

Jim Goldstein's right about the pixels but without that I thin it is a good composition, 5/6

Sorry folks, but I like the pixelation in this image

For those who may not have considered the challenges of photographing smoke...

 

These shots are usually made from a distance of three or four feet, the subject is a three-dimensional volume about 1' x 1' x 3' containing a rapidly moving mass of translucent, light-scattering particles.

 

Depth-of-field is limited to less than the whole volume. Smoke can be grainy in appearance. Different parts of the smoke are moving at different speeds.

 

I have also noticed that creating a negative image often introduces pixelated artifacts, at least with a color image. I make a limited effort to reduce these artifacts. I also use little or no sharpening. I do often use some edge enhancement, which can be a bit tricky due to its tendency to overemphasize grainy bits.

 

Like most things in life these smoke images require balance between reality, perception and presentation. I do my best to maintain that balance.

After your last post I've been browsing your smoke folder, I have been working in fluid dynamics for many years and I find it very interesting, could you please give me some details about the technique ?

 

What smoke sources do you use ? And light ?

 

Thanks.

For the majority of the photos the lighting was esentially the same. The smoke was from one or more incense cones, and was lit from below. The "stack" from bottom up was as follows:

 

1. Alien Bees 800 ws strobe with barn-doors, pointing up.

 

2. An 11" by 14" piece of cardboard with a 7" hole in the center. This acts as a light-shield and support for the remaining items.

 

3. Colored gel pieces or strips between two sheets of clear acrylic. The gels are aligned over the opening in the cardboard.

 

4. A Pyrex bowl 8" diameter by 4" hight inverted over the gels. The bottom of the bowl is flat and about 7" in diameter. This provides a support for the burning incense and does not obstruct the light.

 

5. I place an opaque object about 7" wide by 5" high in front of the bowl to block all light except that reflected/scattered by the smoke.

 

6. This entire "stack" is located about 8' from a flat-black background. The camera is around 3' from the subject.

 

I use the strobe at full power so as to obtain the best DOF.

 

I hope this clarifies any questions you may have as to how I do these shots.