During my last year at high School, I studied higher photography and developed a great range of knowledge and technical ability regarding the subject. However over the past few months i have had less and less free time to expand and reflect on this knowledge and sadly have forgotten a fair bit of what i have learned. Over the next few entries i will look back at the work I completed during the course and hopefully re-jog my memory and develop a liking for photography once again.

Throughout the course, i used my photographs to uncover everyday wonders that were time and again overlooked and unacknowledged by the human eye. Abstract smoke trails were one thing i frequently enjoyed creating and capturing.

Here’s how...
• Place a lit insense stick in a holder in front of a non reflective black cloth to create a pure background tone.  
• Manually set the DSLR camera to an aperture of f8. This will ensure there is enough depth of field to capture the smoke in focus, but not enough to make the background appear sharp.
• Position an off-camera flash to the side of the smoke trail which can be triggered by the camera using a cable. This will ensure the smoke is fully illuminated in the shot.
• With regards to focusing, it is near impossible to auto focus on moving smoke. Switch the camera to manual focus and attempt to pre focus on an object held in the path of the smoke trail before you start the shoot.
Once these rules have been followed you are ready to shoot, although, as i remember, the process is a bit hit and miss so patience is essential. For every 20 shots you take there may only be 1 or 2 which have worked properly but in the end after endless attempts you’ll be left with quite a pleasing collection.