Monster Ru

artsmoke

reading W's posts about artsmoke, i decided to give it a try myself. luckily, i know someone who has all the necessary equipment - black velvet cloth for background, strobes, and a space to set up the shoot.

it took a little while to set it up, to make sure that the background was really black, that the right lights were used so that the smoke would be sufficiently lit, and blocking out light where it would cause the lens to flare. all that set up, we experimented with different types of incense, and found that fire starters (for BBQ) worked quite well - you have to put it out and let it die down a bit. (have more ideas for creating smoke which i will try out soon as well.)

after nearly 1 GB worth of shots, there were only a couple that we liked. 'twas tough to get the smoke to behave in a manner that you want. we were looking for the "sexy curves", which were not exactly in abundance.

what we tried - fanning the smoke gently, opening the windows to let a bit of draft through, (me) walking up and down the room to create a little stir in the air, holding our breath whilst shooting so as to not disturb the smoke too much 'cos we were shooting at close range, using spoons to direct the flow of the smoke, etc. funny that we did not actually try to shoot smoke from a cigarette although we each had a pack of 'em.

out of the many shots, we got what looked like a face (actually, 2 shots of this) and another something like a fish. there was also one that was 2 curves short of a treble clef.

haven't looked through all the shots yet, but will try to post something tomorrow. i think the most difficult part of this experiment is to actually try to control the way smoke comes off whatever is burning. think that is the key to making smoke look like art.

added 4th Nov, 4pm: it may not be a good idea to be shooting smoke non-stop for a few hours straight. one of us got a bad throat from it. it's not me and i feel bad. :-o

posted by 儒 @ 18:08