Next weekend I’ve got 6 locations to photograph as part a
competition I’m entering and I’ve decided that I want to add more to one of the
images and have that dramatic look to it.
Locations
When you know a city so well, its difficult to find a secret
spot that maybe know one knows about. I’ve spent over 4 weeks looking at Google
satellite maps to find areas and then driving to them to see if they might work
out or not. With that said, I think I’ve got it covered.
Adding to the image
The idea of the competition is to photograph the city, and
with that thought maybe just photographing the view of a location or some
street photography, I want to add a feature to the image that wont take away
from the scene but be part of it. So I’ve enlisted the help of a friend who’s
going to act as a model for me, this guy has never done anything like this and
never really likes having his photo taken, but he seems to trust me for some
weird reason, which I’m very thankful.
The Image
With one of the locations, I’ve got this image in my head of
the location with this figure standing there and smoke behind them to add
effect, but not hide the full scene of the location.
The Options
So I have a few options, hire a smoke machine, buy a can of
smoke from Maplin’s or use smoke emitter pellets. The first is not going to
happen as it cost to much for what this is, the second really only works in a
studio and you need an assistant to help, so that leaves the smoke pellets.
Amazon seems to sell most things and even smoke pellets that
are normally used to seek out problems with your chimney and seems like a
possible use for this image.
So a small package arrived in the post this week and I have
10 pellets to work with. To see what the smoke was like, I lit one in the
garden and for about a minute the garden was full of this white smoke!
The problem is that the smoke comes from one point on the
ground and looks more like a rescue flare that’s been lit, I want the smoke to
spread and be even in length across the ground.
A bit of DIY
So with some searching on the web and racking my brain, I
came up with the idea of some kind of tubing that could have holes for the
smoke to break through. The pellets do give off a bit of a smell, which you
don’t want to be to close to and sucking in the smoke, and the pellets give off
some heat as well, so the tube needs to be heat resistant. After some searching
I came up with aluminium semi rigid flexible duct that used in pluming and
heating. I went to my local B&Q and found a piece that’s 1.5m long and was
damaged at one end, so with a bit of bargaining I got it for £5!
What I’ve done is put in about 15 holes in the tubing so
that the smoke can filter through, and at the damaged end I’ve squashed it so
the smoke can’t just go out through that end. I did a test this afternoon and
found a small tin we have to put the pellet in and makes it easier to light and
place in the tube, then blocked off the end with a piece of card with good old
gaffer tape.
So guess what, it works a treat! The pellet gives off about
60 seconds of smoke and with it being confined, it comes out of the holes slower
and spreads evenly.
Conclusion
Now I don’t know for sure if it will work on the day, but
its cost me less than £15 and if it doesn’t work, it wont take anything from
the image I will be creating, this would just add to it.
I’m going to have to work with my model and explain how its
all going to work and point out that they will have to light the pellet and
then run into position and pose, if nothing else it will be fun and a laugh.
I guess the point is that with a bit of imagination and
research, you can come up with the same kind of thing that’s done on large sets,
just on a smaller scale.
I’m hooking up with my model tomorrow to take them round to
the locations so they can see what will be needed and done for the real thing
next week. It will give me the chance to see how they will fit in with the
image I have in mind for each of the locations and where best to place them.
Its all good having it in your head, but can be different when it comes to the
real thing, so this will save some time and maybe give me other ideas for what
I want him to do.
Once I’ve posted the images to the competition, I will post
copies on Google plus to show how good of bad they image came out, who knows it
might be a winner as that’s the reason for entering the competition in the
first place.
Thanks for reading, AndyD
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