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My first smoke shots were only "okay," so today I set out to improve upon them.

First, I stopped down to f/16, giving me about five or six inches depth of field rather than the two inches I had before. I also backed the shutter speed off to 1/125 (from 1/250), though given the actual speed of the flash, all that managed to do was let in more ambient light off the background. Additionally, I shot these mid-day: I should have waited until night time. The basement window let in just enough light that the camera caught some detail in the black cloth background, resulting in a loss of smoke detail in levels adjustments.

First the white shots:

• Vertical Purple
• Vertical Mauve
• Vertical Pink

Then the shots I left on black, many of which I liked horizontal:

• Horizontal Rose
• Horizontal Hot Pink
• Vertical Mirrored Hot Pink
• Horizontal Red
• Vertical Purple
• Vertical Cranberry
• Vertical Navy

The next steps, should I choose to pursue them, are:

• Build a box with a small fan on the top to both keep stray light out, gobo the flashes from the camera (and the backdrop), and suck the smoke a bit more "up and out" than "let it dwell right around the source.
• Play around more with multiple colors and various masks.
• Be pickier about brushing away stray smoke and really seeing simple, simple designs in the smoke rather than the current "here's everything" approach.

But as of right now, I'm relatively happy with how the shots - in both sessions - have turned out.

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