Shooting smoke trails... by Paul Louis Villani

Love your alien Paul… These shots are great

They look FANTASTIC Paul! I love them!!

OK out with the joss sticks – these are stunning Paul!!

you guys did a great job… the effects and shapes are great….try expermenting with gradients to see what colors can pop out…

awesome work!

Really cool.

You guys have been smoking shoot trails for sure…

Totally wicked…love the monotone ones!

Paul the last ones that are B&W are the most amazing!! Great work!

Very cool Paul.

I have always wanted to try this kind of shot PLV. Thanks for the journal!

Wow, well worth the experimenting in the garage! Takes you back to playing with fire and fireworks on bon fire night! I was the only girl in the street so…..

Fantastic!

artful beauty indeed – these are stunning : )

i just luv the rythmn u capture and the shear simple beauty that unfolds!!
it touches the inner pyro in us all!!
i wonder if there is sum sort of science devoted to the fingerprints of smoke trails???

Thank you so very kindly salsbells69, Melissa, Erin, Rosalie, George, Nicole, Chris, Sarah, Randy, Holly, Stephen, Leslie, Jessica, animo and bodymechanic! :D

Top stuff…brilliant.

These are fantastic Paul! thanks for sharing.

Woo!! Excellent !

Thanks so much Woodyk2, Kylie and Caroline! :D

Awesome

I think everyone has said it for me Paul – these are indeed awesome. I see an exhibition of these. Great stuff.

Thanks heaps Lindsay and Lisadee (Noooooo, exhibitions are off the horizon at the moment… and you know why!!!) :D

Brilliant work guys!

Very cool and Very Beautiful…….

These have such a fractal quality to them…

Sheer brilliance!!

Thank you so much Helen, Lisa and Darryl! :D

Wow Paul!!!!! 4 hours very well spent indeed!……………..now where did I put that incense I had? :oD

Thanks heaps Rebecca! :D

Brilliant work. love the alien, would love to try but dont have a garage .LOL

amazing result for such a simple set-up, well done!

You got some fantastic results there Paul… we’ll have to do it again soon mate.
Maybe water drops next time? _haha

Thanks heaps jack01, Jodie and Matt (Sounds like a plan to me!) :D

Tried this a few years ago but the results were nowhere as good as this. Great stuff Paul!

Thanks so much Reg! :D

My favourites are1 and 4, mainly due to the sharpness of the image.

This is great… :-)

Thanks so much mawaho and Liv! :D

This is incredibly painstaking but so rewarding….well done guys!

wow so love all the experimentation involved here.
from the setting up of the camera to get it to work magic for you, to the chemical reactions involved with obtaining those wicked coloured smoke trails, to the little post production tweaks.
all amazing and tis all smelling beautiful!

I must admit after spending just a short amount of time on post prod myself I personally found an artful beauty in these type of images simply by converting them to monotone and tweaking the contrast.

those versions are screaming for a death metal bands cd artwork for sure! ;-)
love this work guys! ;-) xox

I had a play with shooting smoke a tear ago – it was fun but a bit limited. :)

p.s. typo, ‘tear’ = year :(

Thanks so much Mugsy, aglaia b and Shayne! :D

I’ve been experimenting with smoke myself, I want to capture a five headed dragon incense holder just right. This is very inspiring! I hope to have something half as good up soon!

very very cool

Thanks so very much Lori and joolz! :D

Hi Paul,

what smoke was off?

I love getting lost in simpliCity, am I relating? :)

These are incredible Paul….I love these
excellent!

Thanks heaps Gottography and Barry! :D

wow! these are awesome! Love the alien one! Amazing work!

Thanks so much Rachel! :D

Cool stuff Paul. I too have been know to smoke in my garage… I usually go for a week at a time… Love the inverse and mono, look. I used color filters to get colors in the smoke.

Great stuff, Paul! How did you change the color and how did you achieve the figures? They are absolutely gorgeous!