Smoke Art

Lyncca · May 8, 2009

I finally played last night! This was the first try, I'm pretty happy with them. I will definitely do this again. People are going bananas over them!

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sambrody44 · May 8, 2009

How exactly did you do these?

Lyncca · May 8, 2009

They are actually a lot easier to do than they look like. All you need is a black backdrop, off camera flash, and incense. I also used a snoot to direct my light away from the blackdrop. The flash was at about the 10:00 position. Then I metered on the smoke and manually focused. Then I just snapped away as I saw designs in the smoke.

Afterwards, in Lightroom I darkened the blacks as much as possible, exported to PS. Then you can invert the colors for a white background or leave as black, then put a color or gradient overlay set to "hue" or some other setting that will only let the color show through.

That's it

B Kennedy · May 8, 2009

Awesome abstracts, I bet they will look *AMAZING* when printed, and printed big like 13x19+. Very artistic, and some image styles that I've never seen. Great job!

sambrody44 · May 8, 2009

You could definitely sell those in my town. (Woodstock, NY)

Photoadder · May 8, 2009

Nice idea and great pics.

Ps. Use photoadder.com for image hosting!

Lyncca · May 8, 2009

I've had several people tell me that I need to get a booth or something at an art exhibit and that these would really do well. It's nice to hear it from other photographers instead of friends though

I have a friend that is a bronze sculptor. He does art exhibits all the time and he mentioned last night doing a shared show. I would be SO excited!

Al-Wazeer · May 8, 2009

great shapes you got with the smoke, is it pure luck or in somehow intentional?

Lyncca · May 8, 2009

Al-Wazeer said:
great shapes you got with the smoke, is it pure luck or in somehow intentional?

A little of both. You can use spoons, etc to make the smoke respond in different ways, but otherwise, I just tilted the camera with the smoke and waited until I saw something interesting...

When I do it again, I will probably have my husband help me with manipulating the smoke so I can concentrate on the composition more.

Do'Urden's Eyes · May 8, 2009

Ive been wanting to do something like this for while but i just hadn't put too much thought into the approach. But you gave me some good ideas and ill definitely be doing this within the next few days. theyre really good.

abraxas · May 9, 2009

Lyncca said:
... and incense. ...
...
... That's it

Great shots, great idea. I was wondering what I'd have to smoke, ... a little disappointed, but I can score some incense.

Lyncca · May 9, 2009

LOL. It's a little obsessive once you get the setup. I did moe tonight, and will post later. It reminds me of Corinna in her water drop pics, which I need to do again as well since I have so much more equipment now.

I had more than one mention that it reminded them of some happy drugs

seward93 · May 9, 2009

Very nice shots! The first is my favorite

I am just wondering though, in the first one, how do you get the colors all different but blended so smoothly?

Was it done in PS? And how did you get the "tunnel/twister" effect?

Thanks

Lyncca · May 11, 2009

seward93 said:
Very nice shots! The first is my favorite

I am just wondering though, in the first one, how do you get the colors all different but blended so smoothly?

Was it done in PS? And how did you get the "tunnel/twister" effect?

Thanks

The colors are just a radial gradient overlay in photoshop. The tunnel effect just happens naturally. I didn't manipulate the smoke at all, just the angle of the camera and how much of the smoke stream I wanted in the frame.

More of these are located here:
Lyncca Harvey Photography | Abstract