Cliché Classics – Smoke Photography

We’re back again for another exciting installment in what Google Analytics tells me is at least four peoples’ favorite “how to” blog series, Cliché Classics! It’s where I explore some oft-visited photography tropes and see if they can somehow re-ignite the flickering pilot light of the rust-filled water-heater that is my photographic creativity. On tap for this edition, smoke photography!

What You Need

Incense Sticks
To get started with this project you’ll need to pop over to your local new age crystal emporium or homeopathic healing center and pick up some garden variety incense sticks. We don’t have one of those establishments here in Lititz, but we do have a local grocery store that dedicates a portion of its precious floor space to masquerade as a gift shop for 60-year-old women. Luckily, they had a wide selection of incense to choose from. I selected one stick of “Tranquil Pines” and one stick of “Southern Country Breeze.” For your own smoke photography project, feel free to choose aromas that represent other geographic areas in the majestic tableau that is our country, it makes no difference whatsoever.

A Camera and Lens
I used my Canon SLR and 24-70mm lens. I don’t think the type of lens you use matters all that much as long as you can frame the tip of the incense stick and about 8 or so inches of space above it in your viewfinder. If you’re in a large enough room, you can use your foot zoom to set up closer or further away from the smoke.

While we’re on the topic of where you’re setting up, I shot on a dirty old card table in my garage professional posing table in my well-appointed home studio. Since incense doesn’t always have the best smell, and I don’t hate the other inhabitants of my house (and I didn’t feel like dealing with my smoke alarms), I chose to isolate the shoot in a moderately ventilated area. If you’re not particularly fond of whomever you’re living with, you may want to shoot in your family room at the same time your spouse is trying to watch the season finale of the Masked Singer. Much like Ken Jeong, I’m here to entertain, not to judge.

A Tripod
Do you like sharp photos? Me too. Use a tripod.

Something to Hold the Incense Stick in Place
If you don’t have an incense holder, you can use something else you have laying around the house. I used a spring clamp, but if you don’t have one of those try to bribe a 9-year-old to hold it while you yell at them to, “stop moving so much.” It’s not as effective, but it will provide them with an exceptionally juicy session at one of their future therapy appointments.

A Black Backdrop
Ages ago, I bought an $8 set of bed sheets at Wal-Mart strictly for photography purposes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used them, but it’s at least more than once. If you’re into amortization my cost per use it AT LEAST down to $4. You need the backdrop to create a solid contrast color so the smoke will stand out when lit. Which leads us to the next necessary component…

A Flash with a Remote Trigger and a Flag
Your flash is going to both light your subject and freeze the action for capture, so it’s a must. I don’t think a constant light source like a lamp will work here.

Because of the angle of your lighting set up, you’re going to need to need a flag to keep light from spilling on to the black background. I crafted a flag out of black construction paper stapled to the side of a cut-out cereal box piece. Cap’n Crunch if you must know. I took that engineering marvel and rubber banded it to the side of my flash and I was good to go.

Finally, I attached my flash and its wireless receiver to a light stand about a foot or so next to my setup. If your dirty old card table professional posing table is big enough, you can just stand your flash directly on the surface itself, that works too.

THE SETUP

I know in the two prior Cliché Classic blog posts I solemnly swore the next time I did this type of project I would take a photo of the setup to share with you. That didn’t happen. And honestly, I think your expectation that I would remember is somewhat unfair given my previous track record. Clearly that’s on you.

Once again, you’ll have to accept a crudely photoshopped version of how all this went down.

I set up my camera in manual mode at 1/250, f/5, 100 ISO, and settled in at ¼ power for the flash. After everything was ready, I pre-focused on the tips of the sticks, turned off the autofocus, and lit the incense.

Once the smoke is rising, you’re going to want to “waft” some air its way to get some interesting patterns. I wouldn’t recommend blowing on it as this seems to be more volume than the thin strands can handle. A small wave of your hand from about a foot or two out seemed to yield the best results. Then, once you see something you like in your viewfinder, just fire away.

When you’re satisfied you’ve captured all the smoke you can handle, you get to move on to the “adult coloring book” portion of the program. After selecting your favorite smoke images, you can apply some pretty dramatic hues to them in Photoshop.

I’m not going to detail the specifics of the post-processing here because, well… I just don’t want to. And let’s be honest, you’re most likely the only person who has read this far. We really can’t make this post any longer.

So in lieu of that, here’s a link to an excellent video tutorial by First Man Photography on how to achieve similar results.

The Results

THINGS I LEARNED

• I haven’t had much exposure to incense since my college days so I had forgotten how it will royally stink up your garage well-appointed home studio for several days after extended use, so there’s that.
  
  
• Most of the fun aspects of smoke photography revolve around the photoshop work after the fact, so this project ends up being more of a color-picking and application exercise more than an actual photography assignment. So if you don’t like applying gradients and brushing out portions of masks, this Cliché Classic may not be for you.
  
  
• Pre-focusing on the slender tips of the incense sticks against a black backdrop can be tricky, especially in a dimly-lit garage well-appointed home studio. Have a better strategy for finding your focus than I did, (“Uhhh, that looks good enough”) like lighting the sticks with a small flashlight or substituting a slightly larger object on the same plane of focus so your camera can dial it in more easily.

THE VERDICT

While this wasn’t my first foray into this particular Cliché Classic, it was my most productive. I ended up with a lot of abstract images that I really enjoyed. As stated earlier, inverting the shots and coloring the smoke in Photoshop was most of the fun. I got to scratch that imaging software itch I get every so often. Apparently, there’s no cream for that.

I give this photography project a 6 out of 10 on the “Better than attending an Orlando time-share sales presentation so you can get free tickets to Sea World” scale.