Interesting technique. I need to try this. This shot beats yesterdays for me...but only just as I would like this in the green tone you had for the other one...

It strikes me that you've posted one or two shots using this technique previously - a couple months ago or so. Am I recalling correctly? I was realy impressed with it, and was happy to see these two as well.

Tim: I've created a smoke category which now contains all four images.

How do you keep on suprising us? Nice work, i like it!

flat out.. that is awesome... great work on these..

Thanks for the tips on how to do this.. your smoke pictures are awesome.. i will definitely try it out some time!

wow! fascinating... it looks like computer generated chaos imagery

I can see why you like this one - it does look damn near perfect :)

this is very very cool

I feel like i've jumped back in time a few months. I know new visitors won't (maybe) have seen your previous stuff of the same subject...I also know - sorry, 'feel'... that it shouldn't matter...

Hmm...I'm wondering what I'm trying to say here. Ok. It feels like you've simply taken a winning formula and regurgitated it ... I know.. I know...we all do that to some extent. I guess I'm getting the distinct impression that you're feeling 'stuck' lately. Is this right? I would imagine that every single thing you post being met with almost sycophantic praise(wow! wow! wow!) could actually start to drive you down certain mental alleyways but then maybe that's just my thinking (I'm great at self-advertisment eh Dave! ;)...)

Yes, it's a cool image...but did you post it because you were massively proud of it or because it was an easy cop-out trhat you knew damn well people would fall over themselves to praise?

Mark: fair question/point, but it is a bit off the mark this time. When I shot the previous two smoke shots I found them incredibly frustrating because it wasn't something I'd tried before, and they're not easy to get 'right', but I was pleased with the end results. And the reason that there's been such a long gap between the first two and these two is that I didn't want the same frustration again.

However, this time they were a bit easier and a bit more enjoyable to produce, and I'll probably do some more of them at some point. So, to answer your question: yes, I'm pleased with this one, and yes, I did suspect that people would also like it, but I don't think that's a bad thing.

Very nice. :)

It reminds of a music staff for some reason.

Unlike you, I actually prefer yesterday's shot to this one, but they're both beautiful.

I've see your other smoke shots before, and this is without a doubt the most atractive of all the shots you took. Love the brownish (chocolate) tone that you achieve. :-)

nferreira: funny you should mention chocolate, as Libby says this one reminds her of ad's for Galaxy chocolate.

Yeah...but you did get them right FFS! And yes...you're right, it's not such a bad thing. I suppose it's why I don't really read your comments anymore though.

i love all four of the smoke pictures you've posted =)

gorgeous! I've worked a bit with incense/smoke shots and used a very similar technique. I found the the angle the light hits the smoke to be really important to getting this kind of beautifully defined smoke. Really well done!

also meant to mention - the detail at 1/30th is amazing - I've always had to boost the ISO so I could get at least in the 1/125 range for clarity.

Incredibly gorgeous. Thanks for the tutorial on this

what a cool idea.

Great shot, as always! I've just tried this out myself, but I have a hardtime getting the background all black (or all white after invering), perhaps this is because of a head on flash. I've tried lighting it up from the side using a halogen lamp and using regular flash against the smoke, all in front of a black paper. The paper however turns out in black-greyish tone which makes the picture look smudged. Any ideas for getting a 'clean' background without an off target flash ?

This has a hint of tutorial about it :P

Interesting technique. Thank you for this tutorial. So gorgeous this shot.

Wow! it doesnt even look like a photo, but a digital drawing rather.

It's a film negative, run through Photoshop's Timothy Leary filter.

well i don't like it as an abstract, but i do like it as a technical shot, i do like the tones as well!

the quality of this is exceptional! great job!

The soft movement of silk....

HD Connelly: if you use flash the exposure time set on the camera doesn't really matter all that much as the duration of the flash is very brief.

Johan: all I can suggest, if you're using the on-camera flash, is that you move the background as far back as you can get it. All light sources follow an inverse square law of light fall-off; i.e. it gets exponentially darker as you move away from the flash, so if your background is twice as far away it will get 1/4 as much light, four times further away it will get 1/16th, and so on.

fantastic effect, love this style soo much :)

Very good work here

Suby

I love these, as I loved the ones from a few months back. I tried to reproduce them then but to no avail; I couldn't get the clean background or tack-sharp edges. It's not as easy as it sounds but when you get one that works the results are fantastic.

What a fantastic idea, thanks for sharing the technique.

This is amazing! You've alredy done something like that here but it was a long time ago. Last month i had to do 4 photos for my photography class, the theme was "what is not permanent" and i remembered your smoke shots. And that was what I did. =)
They are not sharp as yours and my smoke source was not good (i didn't have anything else than paper, and i had no time to look for something else), but i tried. Thanks for the inspiration!
here are the photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fabiogiolito/sets/72157594302915277/

Thanks everyone :-)

Thank you for sharing how this is done. I like this one but prefer "the movememt of light #1". Nice!

Beautifull shot!! i posted it on my weblog to show the world, including a link to your site.. I hope you don't mind. If you do.. please let me know by email and i'll remove it immediately

Really cool... I was wondering how you got those edges so defined in black.
This is cool... repeating patterns like a ladder.

wonderful shots these! you are an artist.. by now you must have probably started doing all that PP in your mind while taking the shots.... lovely!
thanks for sharing how you did it!!

reminds me of chocolate