Coloured smoke photos
January 20, 2007 12:30 AM   Subscribe

Graham Jeffery's coloured smoke photos inspired folks like Myla Kent to form the Flickr artsmoke pool. [via Apothecary's Drawer]
posted by mediareport (11 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Jeffery's about page notes the color is added in Photoshop.
posted by mediareport at 12:32 AM on January 20, 2007


Damn. What can you say? Jeffery's photos are just lovely. Exquisite. And his is a most excellent use of Photoshop. Nice spotting, mediareport!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:36 AM on January 20, 2007


Oh, by the way, I don't mean just Jeffery's... all those Flickr artsmoke pool pix are gorgeous. Smoke is gorgeous. Smoke rules.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:39 AM on January 20, 2007


Like the sheer nightee on a Vargas girl. Bravo.
posted by hal9k at 5:54 AM on January 20, 2007


I feel bad for Jeffrey. Come up with a clever technique and some interesting images, then find a zillion other people recreate it, poorly, on Flickr.
posted by Nelson at 7:43 AM on January 20, 2007


OK, I take it back: Jeffery seems OK with the Flickr group.
posted by Nelson at 7:46 AM on January 20, 2007


1. Photograph some smoke
2. Add color in Photoshop
3. ???
4. Profit!
posted by neckro23 at 8:24 AM on January 20, 2007


And they make good desktop backgrounds.
posted by Relay at 10:03 AM on January 20, 2007


These are nice images, but they remind me of fish eye images or photographs produced by a kaleidoscope or other trick filter.

The first such image one sees produced in some new way is usually unique and pleasing. Maybe the second or even the third shots work as well, but then no matter how lovely such photographs are, one becomes bored.

Yet, if I were still teaching photography, I would surely make colored smoke photographs a student assignment, sort of like the standard egg on white assignment. Producing such shots would no doubt be great fun, like photographing through Vaseline coated glass or projecting slides onto a live model.

I also think having students copying Graham Jeffery’s technique would lead to more interesting variations. I don’t think we have to wait long to see colored smoke nudes or smoky fashion spreads.

In the old days, these prints would have been done with colored filters over an artificial light source, but now it's all PhotoShop. Magic wand, select, and bingo, change colors.

Speaking of the old days, Jeffery’s work also reminded of a guy who showed me his portfolio of exquisite of wood grain patterns. The photographer had fantastic technique and print quality, and he had truly found great wonder in wood pattern. But, by the time I saw his eighth image, I was ready for a nap.

To honor the wood grain lover’s work and still appear interested, I kept asking about his technique, and in this way I did learn something wonderful. The man taught me a strange printing technique where one coated a damaged negative with a thin layer of nose grease.

It was a wonder as the oil excreted from the glands at the side of the nose fill small scratches and remove dried-on lint and dust. This allowed his 35 mm negatives to enlarge flawlessly to 16” x 20”.

It took many more years to also discover that nose oil eventually destroys the negative. I guess the band aid tool in PhotoShop is now the new nose grease.
posted by BillyElmore at 10:57 AM on January 20, 2007


Hm. Nice.
I thought this would be about something like the Jeep waterfall, but with colored smoke jets at the bottom making lazily floating blurry images. Now that would be cool.
posted by ctmf at 1:08 PM on January 20, 2007


Beautiful, thanks. Reminds me of FogScreen image projection.
posted by cenoxo at 6:49 PM on January 20, 2007


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