I've seen smoke shots here and elsewhere, so decided to try my hand. The setup was a bit of a pain since I wanted the smoke to go up the chimney instead of into the house.
I shined three clamp lamps with 100W bulbs more or less upward at a 45-degree angle and turned slightly toward the camera - that kept the back of the fireplace dark.
Editing took forever, but only because I kept playing with variations and because things look so different between my CRT and LCD monitors. Eventually I settled on some levels, brightness and contrast, and a color layer to turn the gray smoke purple. A selective color layer drove the dark to true black and that was it. Given the subject, sharpening wasn't necessary.
One decision was whether to leave the tip of the incense stick in the image. I decided it gave some context to tell the viewer this really was smoke.
Another was whether to invert it. The white version linked below is doing better than this one on another site. What do you think?
Other outtakes:
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These smoke shots are always interesting, such as this lily looking one. For me, I would like this a little better if the stick at the bottom right was cropped out. I still would have scored this hight for the challenge
This is a beautiful photo and I commend you for trying something new! The smoke really does look like a calla lily. I prefer the white background to the black, as feel the subtleties in the smoke stand out better. It would be fascinating to do this as a double exposure and add a green leaf or stem (also very difficult, I imagine).
I really like this I'm going to try it at home. And if I had not been sick with the flu I would have given it a high score. I like pictures that are different.
Good choice of color. Would have gotten a good score from me if I'd have gotten to it. I like both versions, but suspect the white would have scored better here too. Although I'm a little tired of smoke pictures, you really did capture an uncanny shape here. Nice job.
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