The rainy weather put paid to another weekend's outdoor photography, but luckily enough the flash triggers arrived a few days before, so it gave me an excuse to go back and try something from a while ago. Smoke art is a strange type of photography as the image taking is only a small part of the process. A lot of the magic occurs in the computer later. It's also one of the types that you can't really plan what you want to take a photo of, as most of the time it's a click and hope process when opening the shutter. As the smoke trail is constantly moving and transforming, if you see a shape form in the smoke, by the time you've fired the shutter, the trail has moved and twisted and changed.

The set up I've been trying is simple enough to do. A dark background, an insense stick and a flashgun set at 90 degrees to the camera. I quickly realised that masking off part of the flash was needed, as light was spilling onto the background an illuminating it slightly, just enough to register on the sensor. Manual focus is a must, as the thin smoke would make it nearly impossible for the camera to focus automatically. Then it was a case of lighting the insense, letting the smoke rise and keep firing the shutter.

Here's one of the images that I came up with. It's been mirrored and then coloured.

There are more in the General section of the gallery