It is really great to look at smoke and see what you see. Everyone is different in what they see and then with what they see what they feel. The previous shot was a rose and then I used my post processing to make that vision reality. This smoke shot here looked like a serpent/snake with an open mouth with a forked/knifed tongue. With that thought in mind I molded my shot to that vision. Once again the original shot was already there. I removed a small amount of plume around the sword/upper right area to complete that vision. Add a little color with filters and curves and the shot was complete.
I am enjoying the smoke abstract. Having my shots in Explore means that others have enjoyed them as well and thank you all for that. But really for all of us it is our own vision that we expand upon with the motivation to create feelings in others with that vision.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Double Edged Sword
Monday, July 9, 2012
Smoke Rose
Once again this is a photographed smoke from an incense.
Believe it or not I did very little to this to get it this way. I did paint out with a black brush some on the top end to get rid of some of the plume that gathered at the top but the original shape of stem and rose was there already. That is why I picked this shot to do "The Rose". I also added the color with Nik Color Efex Pro 4.0 Bi-color filter. After that it was a little Hue/Sat and Curves to finalize it.
Post Processing:
>Duplicate Layer
>Black Brush-Brush out areas not wanted (in this case top area plume)
>Nik Color Efex Pro 4.0-Bi-Color filter to add Green and Red
>Adjustment Layer-Hue/Sat Green-Saturation and intensify color
>Adjustment Layer-Hue/Sat Red-Saturation and intensify color
>Adjustment Layer-Curves for final contrasts
>Cropped, framed and sized for posting
Smoke'm If you Got'm
Spent the day in the garage shooting with the make shift studio. Water drops and smoke trails.
Started out shooting water drops, pans of water, plastic bags, koolade that was all an interesting time. But this is what I really couldn't wait to get to. I haven't shot smoke trails before so after watching a view You Tube videos on the subject I decided to go for the gusto.
First step was to go to the local smoke shop and pick up some incense and a holder. When I picked a few that I thought were good the store owner said "Oh these are very nice and they have very little smoke to them". I told her "no,no,no I need the ones with a lot of smoke". She looked at in an odd way and asked why. I told her for a photography project and she pointed me in the right direction. $3.75 out the door (How cool is that)
The set up is pretty simple:
Black Back drop, Desk Lamp, Flash gun, remote flash release, tripod, Incense and of course camera.
Put up your black cloth background, set incense in the middle, on one end you put the desk lamp and point it where the smoke is going to be, the other end you put the flash. You stand in the middle, light the incense and shoot away.
Here are my settings that don't change for the entire shoot:
Flash set to manual 1/2 power
Camera settings: 1/200 of a second (Just below sink speed), ISO 100, F/11
I shot many a shot with just smoke but I really like this showing the incense, holder with the silhouetted light.
This is pretty much right out of camera.
>Adjustment layer of Levels for contrast
>Cropped, Framed and Sized for posting