20130402

incense-smoke photography tutorial

tutorial.. well, at least thats what it looks like to me..

once upon a time, i came up with the photo below. i wasn't really into smoke, incense type of photography
but as i find myself, secretly searching for these kind of shots and also trying to learn how to take them..
i thought to myself, well might as well give it a try.












so im gonna share the story behind this photo,
hopefully you'll be taking similar or better shots.






stuff you'll be needing;

- an external flash ( i should add, its a must)
- a black background (so smoke can pop in the shot) 
preferably something can absorb the light
- a reflector like a piece of white paper to the otherside so it can reflect the light from flash (this is actually up to you. not mandatory)
- incense and its thingy
- and a piece of paper to block the light reaching to the background, should look like this:



there will be some annoying minor problems but im sure you'll sort them as you go.


---

my setup was somewhat like this



and theres the external flash on the left with a blocker as i mentioned.

it should look like this once you're done with the setup


well this was my final shot.
take like hundreds of shots and pick the one you like. 
since you won't be able to control its form, you will need some luck aswell to capture the shape you want.

use negative effect on photoshop if you like to get the white background i used.

mine got some coloring and retouch too, nothing else really.



thats pretty much all.
have fun!

1 comment: