How to Photograph Smoke

Smoke is another good subject especially if you are into abstract photography or just making it as additional effect for the subject of your photos. 

There are thousands of "how to's" article and video tutorial in smoke photography in the internet that you can follow, just ask uncle Google and he will answer you with thousands of links to follow. 

This article is from sublime-light.com:

The first tutorial to be featured on the Sublime Light is on how to photograph smoke photographs. Photos of smoke are amazingly beautiful, extremely easy to take, and can really take on some interesting shapes. Everyone who looks at a smoke picture sees something different, which is one of the best parts. Where one person will see an angel, another will see a demon. This is a great way to get creative with photography without a lot of equipment commitment.
I’ll show you step by step how to photograph smoke, then how to process the pictures using Photoshop to really make them stand out. So enough already, let’s get started!
Here’s what you’ll need:

• A digital SLR camera capable of firing an off camera flash using a PC connection or a hot shoe cord.
• An off camera flash. This can either be a full studio strobe, or as simple as a battery operated flash connected to the camera using a cable.
• A black background. This can be as simple as a black coat draped over the back of a chair.
• Some incense. Incense gives off the nice thick smoke needed to make these images.
• An image processing application such as Adobe Photoshop. Other applications will work as well, though I won’t give you directions on how to use those. One popular free application is Gimp.

Set up your incense a couple feet in front of the black background, and your camera directly across from that. Then set up your flash directly to the side of the incense so that the light hits it at a 90 degree angle to the camera’s view. Make sure the flash isn’t pointing at the background and it’s not pointing back at the camera. This will cause the background to light up, or will cause flare in the picture. If needed, you can put a home made snoot around the flash to keep the light from spilling away from the smoke. Here’s what it should look like: <<Read full article>>

Posted in: How to