Not sure what the neighbours thought of the scented pale blue smoke drifting their way through open windows, as I completed my set-up for my attempt to capture lazy whirls of smoke arising from the burning incense sticks (were n't these called josh sticks back in the sixties?) As part of my ongoing photography education, I had spotted some beautiful studies in smoke and felt it was time for me to attempt a reasonable capture.
I felt that a set up with pure black background would work best as it effectively contrasted with the pale blue smoke. The trick I discovered with much trial & error was to illuminate only the smoke with a speedlight flash, being very careful that the light from the flash did not escape & light up the black background---otherwise the effect of the pure black back-drop would be lost. To achieve this with material on hand, I placed the light in front of the back-drop and wrapped a cone of black paper around the flash to concentrate the light spread only onto the rising smoke swirls. I also quickly identified the need to make sure that all the air in my studio was 100% calm to avoid chaotic breakup of the smoke streams. This included closing all windows, doors and switching off the forced air heating system. Such is the delicacy of the smoke whirl that even any movement by myself in the room made the smoke rise chaotically and break up in a manner that I did not feel was compositionally what I was seeking.
I set the camera, my Nikon D610 DSLR, to 1/200th, and a moderate f 9, ISO 200, with speedlight at 100% power. The burning incense sticks pulled out in stages to about 4ft. in front of the black back-drop. These settings were arrived at of, course, after some considerable trial and error.
Smoke from the incense sticks has little native colour and photographs as a light grey when illuminated from slightly below & behind the smoke. This is where the physical constraints of photography intersect with creative licence. In the top picture, I painted the three different zones of the smoke swirl using large soft brushes in Lightroom set with tones of green, blue and yellow (top). In the image to the lower left I toyed with the white balance in Lightroom to accentuate the blue aspects captured by the camera.
Capturing attractive smoke swirls is a numbers game. The smoke formations come together and dissipate in a flash. I spent the best part of 3 mornings on this project with the camera and later refining selected images on the computer. I estimate that in total I took more than 300 shots.
READERS: To make most sense of the continuity of this blog, it is suggested that you commence reading entries with the earliest posting date.
I felt that a set up with pure black background would work best as it effectively contrasted with the pale blue smoke. The trick I discovered with much trial & error was to illuminate only the smoke with a speedlight flash, being very careful that the light from the flash did not escape & light up the black background---otherwise the effect of the pure black back-drop would be lost. To achieve this with material on hand, I placed the light in front of the back-drop and wrapped a cone of black paper around the flash to concentrate the light spread only onto the rising smoke swirls. I also quickly identified the need to make sure that all the air in my studio was 100% calm to avoid chaotic breakup of the smoke streams. This included closing all windows, doors and switching off the forced air heating system. Such is the delicacy of the smoke whirl that even any movement by myself in the room made the smoke rise chaotically and break up in a manner that I did not feel was compositionally what I was seeking.
I set the camera, my Nikon D610 DSLR, to 1/200th, and a moderate f 9, ISO 200, with speedlight at 100% power. The burning incense sticks pulled out in stages to about 4ft. in front of the black back-drop. These settings were arrived at of, course, after some considerable trial and error.Smoke from the incense sticks has little native colour and photographs as a light grey when illuminated from slightly below & behind the smoke. This is where the physical constraints of photography intersect with creative licence. In the top picture, I painted the three different zones of the smoke swirl using large soft brushes in Lightroom set with tones of green, blue and yellow (top). In the image to the lower left I toyed with the white balance in Lightroom to accentuate the blue aspects captured by the camera.
Capturing attractive smoke swirls is a numbers game. The smoke formations come together and dissipate in a flash. I spent the best part of 3 mornings on this project with the camera and later refining selected images on the computer. I estimate that in total I took more than 300 shots.
READERS: To make most sense of the continuity of this blog, it is suggested that you commence reading entries with the earliest posting date.
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