Comments on: Coloured smoke photos

Coloured smoke photos

mediareport — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 00:30:49 -0800

Graham Jeffery's coloured smoke photos inspired folks like Myla Kent to form the Flickr artsmoke pool. [via Apothecary's Drawer]

By: mediareport

mediareport — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 00:32:56 -0800

Jeffery's about page notes the color is added in Photoshop.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 03:36:23 -0800

Damn. What can you say? Jeffery's photos are just lovely. Exquisite. And his is a most excellent use of Photoshop. Nice spotting, mediareport!

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 03:39:00 -0800

Oh, by the way, I don't mean just Jeffery's... all those Flickr artsmoke pool pix are gorgeous. Smoke is gorgeous. Smoke rules.

By: hal9k

hal9k — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 05:54:51 -0800

Like the sheer nightee on a Vargas girl. Bravo.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 07:43:00 -0800

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.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 07:46:57 -0800

OK, I take it back: Jeffery seems OK with the Flickr group.

By: neckro23

neckro23 — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 08:24:30 -0800

1. Photograph some smoke 2. Add color in Photoshop 3. ??? 4. Profit!

By: Relay

Relay — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 10:03:35 -0800

And they make good desktop backgrounds.

By: BillyElmore

BillyElmore — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 10:57:58 -0800

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.

By: ctmf

ctmf — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 13:08:11 -0800

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.

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 18:49:02 -0800

Beautiful, thanks. Reminds me of FogScreen image projection.