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| Life- It's not all smoke and mirrors |
So, it was night. Dark and foreboding. I have never attempted photographing smoke,
strictly as smoke, but I did believe it would be best if I photographed it in
the dark and used a light source to highlight it to bring out the variances
found in the transparency and drift that is produced. Because of the low light I also knew that I
would need my tripod, and to use a timer or a remote shutter to help reduce
camera shake. So I gathered everything
that I needed:
One regular flashlight , two of
the energizer light on demand sticks (I can’t find the exact type of light this
is but it is a very white light-I’m thinking it is halogen,) one votive candle, one long wooden match
stick, my Canon 5D Mark II and my 100mm f/2.8 macro lens on my tripod. I cleared the table and set it against a
plain wall so there was no background noise.
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| It Must Be Angel's Wings |
I put my camera on my
tripod and on either side of the votive candle I put one of the light sticks
and kept the third light in my hand lower than the table and pointing upward
toward the ceiling /smoke. “Was this
going to work?” I wondered. It was time
to light the candle and I tried to focus; this part was not very easy
actually. The smoke moves so fast and
is so transparent. So I tried to focus
midway to my set- up to keep the smoke in focus. I
concentrated on the wick first in manual focus and it seemed to work fairly
well, although my smoke source was the wooden match, not the candle. The aperture chosen by the camera was 2.8,
which is always fine by me, so I stayed with shutter priority and a 0.5-.6
second shutter seemed to work the best to catch the smoke with all its twists
and turns before it dissipated. I set my
camera to the 10 second timer and did bracketing exposure of -1/3 to +1/3 (on
the timer it allowed for three quick shots making catching the smoke in three
different forms much easier.)
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| Petals of Smoke |
The
candle was lit, bringing in a quiet light; flashlights in position and turned
on and I touched the long wooden match to the fire to get it burning, then dropped it lower than the candle so the candlelight would also be a light source. I would press the shutter then point the third light upward, and with practice blew out the flame of the
match at just the right moment for the shutter to click and catch the
smoke. This took practice and I missed as often as I
hit it just right at the beginning, it got better the more I practiced. Shooting
straight on to the rising column of smoke also proved to be the best way to
catch the smoke, although I did try to shoot it upward from below and it wasn’t
very successful. You can begin to swirl
the match or do other things with it to produce various effects with the smoke. It became great fun when it all came together
and started to work.
I found pre-planning this
shoot was as important as actually shooting the smoke. Once you understand all the things that come
into play, it becomes much easier, not only for planning but for shooting. It is worth the experience in every way and I
just may find reasons to shoot it again!
As always, for me though, it
is about how the photograph makes you feel. When the colors are good, especially
subtle color variances, it is even better. So which ones touch your soul? And how do they make you feel?
