Sunday, July 10, 2016
How To Compose Smokin’ Photos With Smoke and Color
Rosco Spectrum: Recently I hosted a smokin’ workshop at my studio in Boston’s historic South End. Actually it wasn’t smoke, it was fog from a Rosco Mini-V fog machine! We also used a Rosco Location Lighting Filter Kit, which is filled with the Rosco materials I use the most – both in my professional work as a photographer and in my photography workshops.
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3 comments:
These pictures are super cool. Lighting is definitely something I would like to pursue, and this article has helped a little in expanding my viewpoint of what you can experiment with in the lighting field. All these pictures are colorful but mysterious at the same time. They show what exactly one can work with to get a desired effect. I think the bright neon lights kind of make the pictures look fake, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Also, the amount of planning that goes into these pictures is insane. First of all, they need all this high tech equipment that one can’t just buy over the counter. Second of all, that equipment could get wet, as happened in this article, so you have to plan for rain. You have to plan your setup, because the smoke could distort the image or the lights. Then you have to plan how the person is going to look, and then change lights for them, so it’s a crazy process, and it’s really cool how this guy does workshops to teach more people about it.
I love the usage of fog for photography. Sometimes filters and break-ups simply aren't enough to alter the environment in a memorable way or in the way that matches the ideas in your headspace. The mysterious characteristics of the fog move the image in a way that isolates the model in suggests a fantastical dreamscape. Further, the placements of the lighting units alter the fog in interesting ways. I love the malleability of fog even outside the realm of photography. Used in theater with active lighting, fog can create unique dimensions in the sense of place. In the past year I've incorporated fog into my school's rendition of Secret Garden during the number in which the lead Mary opens the gate to the garden for the first time. The result was simply ethereal with golden backlight haloing the actress and dramatic sidelight focused on the textured hedge flats. The absence of front-light sold a dramatic show.
As an aspiring photographer I have only found myself shooting with fog once Although it created beautiful images with very unique looks, I found it to be extremely difficult to work with and therefore I chose not to use it in the future. After reading this article I gained a lot of great tips on using fog in my photos, and I will definitely implement it in the future. The relationship between the light and the fog is very interesting, how different colors and breakups show in the fog and the clear space between is quite beautiful. The lighting is the key factor in using fog in photos, it creates atmospheres that hold color, and even shape that can define an entire image.
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