[tweetmeme]Here are some of the smoke photographs from my portfolio. Smoke photographs always fascinate me. A sense of anonymity on the type and shape of smoke makes it so unpredictable and poses a challenge, and at the same time increases our creativity to come up with things that match the shape.
To completely understand the process involved in taking a good smoke photograph read my Quick Recipe for Smoke Photography. Otherwise, enjoy 17 of my best smoke photographs.

My kind of torch !

Giraffe on Dope

Buzzz

Array of Colours

Curtain

Red Hot Tea Pot

Rooster House on Fire

Tri Colour

Don’t come next to me

Dream

Lady Lying In Her Arms

Serene

Bat on Flight

Wave

Angel

Eaten

Threesome

All the pictures in this post are copywrighted to AnRb photography and any use of this work in hard or soft copy or transfer must be done with the expressed consent of Amar Ramesh, the author, in written.

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Smoke photography has gained lot of momentum in the recent years. There are some photographers out there who come up with amazing smoke photographs. The setup for smoke photography is relatively simple. Here’s a quick recipe for  successful smoke photographs.

Items Needed:

• A power controllable flash/strobe light
• A DSLR
• A good lens (preferably macro lens)
• An incense sticks
• Tripod optional
• Black background
• Two small black sheet
• Wireless flash trigger or wired trigger

Steps Involved:

• Attach the black back drop to the wall.
• Place the incense stick a foot away from the back drop.
• Place a table lamp on the right to help with focusing.
• Place the flash/strobe on the left side of the incense stick, half a foot away from smoke.
• Place the black sheet on either side of the strobe to avoid unwanted spill and flare.
• Start with 1/16th of the power and go up or down depending on your strobe.
• Now light the incense stick, switch on the table lamp.
• Focus on the edge of the incense stick where the smoke arises. Don’t open your aperture wider than f8.0
• Keep the shutter speed below your sync speed. 1/200 is preferable.
• Click away and get some great smoke pictures.
• Slightly blow the smoke to get some dramatic shapes of smoke.
• Try placing 2 or 3 incense sticks to form a pattern.

Easy post processing techniques:

• Open the picture in Photoshop.
• Select the entire image by clicking Ctrl A or Cmd A
• Go to Image>Adjustments>Inverse. This will make the background white.
• Use Hue and Saturation to adjust the color of the smoke.
• Also try the colorize option under Hue & Saturation adjustment to get some dramatic colors of the smoke on a white background.

Follow these steps and end up with some artistic pictures. Last but not least always remember to practice, practice and practice. That’s the only way to be perfect.