As a web designer, it's often required to make nice header graphics or background, or even design feature boxes which might contain boring data. I'm not going to say that Photoshop can't do this, in fact there's pretty much nothing you can't do in Photoshop CS4, but a good photograph can help you on the way to a more abstract look, which is exactly what this experiment proves.

I've always thought that smoke creates amazing shapes and shades, and I was pondering how to capture this on still images, and this method is the one I found to work best.

First of all, a dark room is required. I used a 2 meter long table, placing the candle on one side and the camera on a tripod (this is essential to get the focus right) on the other side. Use a spot light to cast a bright light on the smoke only.

My equipment is a Canon 40D with a EF50mm lens with a max aperture value of 1.4, which is great for this purpose. It leaves the focus only on the smoke, whilst the background (if there is any) blurs nicely, exactly how we want it.

The camera is not able to use the Auto Focus (AF), so to get the focus right use manual (MF), or alternatively make your assistant (in my case my mother) hold an item in the area in which the smoke will appear, use AF to get the focus right and then set it to MF before shooting.