The Art Smoke effect

Balance to the world
Dancing with the rhythm
With the harmony
Sense and beauty

Photo : Agus d Laksono

photo : Agus d. Laksono

Basic
The art of smoke effect are one of basic experimental effect in photography. To make a smoke we could use :
- dry ices
- mosquito coils
- cigaret
- incense
- Candles
- Others material that can make a smoke

For this photo experiment i used a mosquito coils.

There is two step to make this photo :

Material image of smoke with a good quality 

First of all we should shoot a lot of stock image of smoke. For background we could use a black back drop. Place the subject, 1.5 - 3 meter from the background, i use mosquito coils and start ready to burn it on.

For lighting just use one light for side light. You can use mono block (studio lamp) or strobist with portable flash light. Set with hard light condition, if you use mono block lamp, use standart reflector and honey comb.

i use mosquito coils to make smoke effect (left)  | lighting diagram (right)

Set your camera to manual focus, and for all this photo the  aperture at f.11. Don't forget to use a tripod to make your focus steady. Shoot in RAW or Jpeg format, and take a lot of shot.

Post Production 


the next step is digital processing, for this photo i use photoshop. We can use one or several image to make a great smoke pictures. We can make shape, line,copy layer and transform this.

photo : Agus d Laksono

For coloring we could try hue & saturation adjustment layer. To make  the background white go to Images > Adjustments > inverse, this will make the background change to white.

photo : Agus d. Laksono

This photo i made it's still  the basic, all this photo made with Nikon D3000, and 18-55mm lens kit. With your low end camera you could make a great picture.

Come on, wake up, get up, use your gears, and explore it.
Just play and forget the rules, break it and make a great image.
Have a nice day, and have fun...:)

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- Agus d Laksono, www.01photography.com -