Parents, if you want wonderful pictures of your children, never teach them to say "cheese"! Please learn from my mistake or you will have thousands of photos just like mine - squinted eyes, scrunched up noses, clenched teeth, and an image that just screams "say cheez!!!". Join me while I search for that one perfect shot that doesn't conjure up images of dairy products. Oh, and unless you like that *messy* look, you'll probably want to clean their faces before you snap away. I never seem to remember myself.

An imporant sidenote is to make sure you document your life! Recording the little details of the who, what, where, when, & why makes for wonderful stories and captures your life for years to come. Because if you are like me, you'll forget it all 5 minutes later!

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Smoke on the Water

...a fire in the sky. Can't help it, that song keeps going through my head! If I had a clue how to add music to my blog, I would have put up that song from Deep Purple. But I don't, so I didn't.

Here's my little creativity play this week. This was something that I've been wanting to try for quite a while now. It was definitely harder than I anticipated! I never was able to get the exposure correct - you have to shoot an almost transparent subject at a high shutter speed with a narrow aperture on a dark background and my light sources just weren't bright enough. And the post processing in Photoshop...yuck! No matter what I do I struggle with that program. But all in all it was enjoyable trying it out...I can see why so many people love this art form. It really was almost meditative watching the smoke rise and following the intricate forms it creates. This is one challenge that I think I'll keep trying over and over again until I get it right.

Photobucket

Photobucket

17 comments:

pat said...

Oh.my.word!!!!!!! These are MASSIVELY cool! I can see where this would be well worth the work, and yes, very soothing and addicting. I LOVE the smoke rolls in that second shot. THESE ARE SO COOL!!!!!!

Trina said...

WOW!!! Those are awesome!! You did a great job despite the challenge!!

Jess said...

OMG, these ROCK! I seriously just stared at them for 10 minutes... they are mesmerizing!

Chell said...

WOw awesome. I would love to know how to do that.

Amy said...

These are so COOL!!! WOW!!!

Mom2Drew said...

I would love to have these printed on my walls!

Jeanette said...

WOW WOW WOW!!!! I need to learn how to do these type of shots. Just amazing and I love the colors.

selena said...

that is so neat to look at! love them both :)

Donnah Ciempka said...

These shots are amazing!!!!! Such a clever idea and the skill required to shoot them - awesome job.

Reds said...

Wow!!! Love your shots!! Those are amazing!

Kim said...

Blew me away!

Becky said...

Amazing! Beautiful! Just last night my DH was saying something about me trying a smoke shot, and I was all, "No way! That's wicked hard!" I'm so impressed by you. And now I have the song stuck in my head too. :-) Reminds me of one of my BFFs from junior high.

mel said...

very cool! You did a great job on these!

Anonymous said...

These are just outrageously cool and amazing. I just kept looking that them for several minutes...at all the details and the colors. Really lovely. Thank you for sharing!

Bobbi said...

Ok wow, this is insanely cool. I might have to look more into this method...and now I have that song in my head thanks ;)

Debbi said...

These are so cool! I want to learn more about how you did this!

LuckyMommy's Photography Blog said...

Wow! Those are beautiful! I think you nailed them perfectly! I would love to see more of these!