Cloud Smoke
I don’t know which of these two images I prefer, but right now I am leaning towards the top one.
Another slightly over the top processing, like the starlings on a wire (and from the same day). But again, it works for me as it brings out the wispy clouds. It would have been better if I had a fire burning in the wood stove, creating wisps of smoke to blend into the clouds. I guess next time we have these kinds of clouds, I could light a fire, though they seem more typical of warmer weather.
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Canon EOS 5Dii, Canon 100mm/f2.8 lens, ISO 640, f13, 1/1000th.
burnt embers 
Ooo, tough choice here today! For me personally, I think I’d go with the first one, it seems to exhibit a touch more tension in it with the stack being so close to the edge of the frame and the wispy clouds seeming to move towards it… they’re both awesome, I give up!!
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Hi Toad. I forgive you for not making a choice. Really, I was not expecting everyone to make one, though it worked out like that.
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While I see most prefer the first image, I actually prefer the second! No no, it’s not to be different, I just find the sky more…striking in it. The one cloud on the right side almost looks like lightning which really caught my eye. Also like the dutch angle going on with the stack. My only reservation is the stack, in my opinion, is just a little too high in the image, would have been nice to have just a tad more sky above it. I also like how the clouds “appear” to flow better from the stack (hope that made sense), as if the two are related somehow. Well, it is early here, hope I am making sense, either way…love both shots! 😀
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Hi David – thanks for your thoughtful comments. I had never heard the term dutch angle before, but now that I have looked it up I see it is something I knew about, just did not know it has a name. As to the degree which the stack fills the frame – that is one of those prime lens things – I did not have much option for moving around and preserving the angle I was looking for and the bottom of the stack (not that I thought about it too much). And a 50mm lens (my next size) would not have done the trick either. You are making sense, btw. Looking at those photos again the other day I was thinking that the sky might not even need the stack. It could be a very interesting photo if processed heavily like this and with the clouds arranged the right way in the frame.
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I used to take a lot of pictures on black and white infrared film, and these images remind me of some from that period, both in the appearance of the clouds and the glint on the chimney. Your speculation about people’s preferences being influenced by the direction in which their language is written is certainly plausible. I wonder if it might also have something to do with which picture they see and “imprint on” first.
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Hi Steve. I shot a few rolls of infrared in 1980 for a project I was on to see if it would highlight vegetation differences so we could use it for illustration purposes (didn’t work). At that time I did not know it was being used as an artistic tool or I might have taken a few illicit frames for fun. I have been fascinated by what I have been seeing in the past year – it changes the scenery completely. Maybe I will rent an infrared modified DSLR sometime just for the fun of it.
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I’ve thought of having one of my old EOS camera bodies converted but haven’t yet taken the plunge. I lived in infrared, artistically speaking, from 1976 through the mid-1980s, but I don’t know if I want to venture back or if I should stay in the present.
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I guess the question would be whether it would bring something to your current artistic trend which is quite likely to be different than 30 years ago. The two might meld together wonderfully well. Or not.
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The clouds do look quite remarkable.
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Thank you Karen.
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I like the top one as well. There’s far more dynamic tension in it.
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Hi skadhu. One of the things I prefer about the top one is the little loop in the clouds near to the chimney – kind of like a knot in wood. I wonder if that contributes a bit to the tension.
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Hi…I am a new subscriber to your blog. I also like the first one better but for a different reason. To me the man made chimney is indicative of strength and its standing tall and prominent in the image is a ‘stop’ to my eye. In the first shot the clouds are ‘stopped’ by the chimney and don’t cross over it while in the second the clouds cross behind the chimney which to me seems to diminish its strength. Like was also mentioned it just feels right on the left but that may be the old read left to right thing.
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Hi Howard, and welcome to my blog, thanks for subscribing and commenting. I hope to see more of you. And, I have had a quick look at your website – there are some amazing shots there. I will be spending more time browsing. I especially the like the ethereal shots of women standing at the edge of the ocean, all blurry. Very nice.
I agree about the reading left to right thing as being a likely contributor to everyone’s feeling that the top shot is better. It would interesting to see if people that read the other way prefer the second shot.
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Now I have looked some more, the photos of yours I was referring to are in our ‘dreamscapes’ series.
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Thanks. Those were done using a Lensbaby with a zone plate insert. I have been doing more black and white work lately and ran across your blog and was drawn to the black and white images immediately. Really beautiful!
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I prefer the first of the two. I like the way the smoke drifts diagonally off screen. The chimney stack, when it is on the right edge, creates an unnatural ‘stop’ to the image, I feel. The contrasty processing suits this perfectly – exactly what this image requires. Well done.
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Thank you Andy. I was most interested in the clouds, but felt that I really needed some foreground to go with them. That was kind of what this set of photos (mostly with starlings) was all about – finding a way to shoot the sky that was interesting.
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I agree – I like the first one better. I think it’s because it feels better to have the chimney, serving as an anchor to the frame, on the left.
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Thanks Melinda. It seems to be a consensus.
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I prefer the top photo also. Perhaps you can light the fire, get the smoke coming out, re-shoot the photo from the same angle and Photoshop just the smoke coming out of the stove onto this photo. But you would need more room at the top part of the frame. Or just mask in these clouds onto the new photo. Ideas, I got a lot of ’em.
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Nice Idea Ken. I think I will just wait for another good sky and light the fire. Around here the smoke usually streams out sideways, to not have a breeze is pretty unusual, so I might not need to adjust the framing. I suspect I will just live with it like this.
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I have trouble reading the print in your comments as the font size is tiny, viewed on a tablet computer with 7″ screen and the writing is in long lines. I can expand the page and move it to left and right to read it but the high resolution of the photos makes this a slow and jerky process. When the photo is the right size to exactly fit the screen the writing is illegible. I usually wait till morning and look at them again on a computer with a 14″ screen, but it would be nice to read your blog better in bed at night! The pics themselves look great onthe 7″screen but are rather slow to load and resist being stretched or squished.
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Hi Val – it’s truly a shame you can’t read my blog in bed! I am interested to see how it looks on those small tablets, sometime I will have to have a look. I do have the apps for mobile devices enabled. But, I suspect that the small font is a problem arising from the default settings for my ‘theme’ (the canned layout I have chosen called Nishita). I am not sure how, on these smaller devices like yours, you can enlarge the webpage view, if at all. In a PC it is ctrl + to make text bigger and ctrl- to make it smaller. On Macs I think it is cmd+ adn cmd-.and I am pretty sure those keystrokes work Internet Explorer, Firefox and chrome. In Chrome you can also do this via the little barred icon at the right of the URL window where there is a zoom feature. This was not working in for Nishita with Chrome, but when I brought it to WordPress’ attention they fixed it. I am not sure what similar functionality there may be in a tablet or other smaller device. Anyway, I hope you figure it out so you can read my blog in bed in the middle of the night (it probably displays best then with a dark room).
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