Abstract photo

anton980 · Apr 17, 2005

Hello! I've been doing some experiments last night and came up with this. I thought it looked interesting, so I wanted to share it and see what everyone else thinks of it. Thanks!

Anton

mentos_007 · Apr 18, 2005

woow!! looks cool! is that a smoke from cigarettes? I can see a dog shape

Christie Photo · Apr 18, 2005

You're right... it is interesting. Makes me think of an X-ray.

Nicely done!

anton980 · Apr 18, 2005

Hi and thanks for replies! Yes, it's smoke. I shot a ton of these that night, then looked through them, found the ones I thought to be most interesting, cropped the interesting part and mirrored it. They remind me of ink blobs at psychiatrists office - if you look at it long enough, you can find a ton of different things. Here's another one - quality is pretty bad, though. It took me a while to figure out how to light these properly

bennyboy · Apr 18, 2005

How did you light these if you don't mind me asking? It's a great effect.

thebeginning · Apr 18, 2005

that is freaking sweet. prime rib right there. great idea!

mentos_007 · Apr 18, 2005

well... so if you compared it to the ink blobs at psycho's what does it mean if I see a dog there?

anton980 · Apr 18, 2005

bennyboy: Use a darkest piece of cloth you can find for a background, set up your smoking prop as far away from the background (so you dont put too much light on it during shooting, that way it stays black), then set up a couple of lights (I used a table lamp since I dont have anything more professional) to illuminate the smoke and try to keep the background in the shadow. And lastly, use a strong flash from the side, so the smoke reads bright while the background is shadowed.

thebeginning: thanks! I have a few interesting ideas for this kind of photography. I'll try them out first chance I get

mentos_007: I dont even know where to begin looking for that dog!

meotter · Apr 18, 2005

i love the technique!!! i'd love to try it myself, but i'm pretty much very lazy

haha so i plan on living vicariously through you... take a bazillion pictures and post them all

sometimes i become completely entranced watching smoke curl off a cigarette that is just burning in the ashtray.

matches & candles work too, but not nearly as well as the stinky cigarettes

anton980 · Apr 18, 2005

Thanks very much for kind words, meotter! If you're going to try this, use incense sticks. They seem to provide the most stable supply of smoke, and they smell the best. And I'll definately post more photos just as soon as I take them. Thanks again!

Anton

Alpha · Apr 19, 2005

the second one is ridiculous. looks like you make it in Lightwave or something. Does anybody else see the face?

meotter · Apr 19, 2005

they all actually very much remind me of geiger art work... those crazy demon paintings... same colors etc.

incense sticks are awesome for that

true dat!

ferny · Apr 19, 2005

I think they're wonderful. In the first I see three female faces and in the second I see a women bending backwards with her arms pointing towards us. And as I typed I saw something else which I won't comment on.

Thanks for the info. Very very good work.