Smoke Photography and Smoke Art

Photography is constantly reminding us how wondrous and beautiful the world we live in truly is. It often urges us to take another look at the ordinary things around us in a new light, revealing a quiet beauty in even the most mundane of objects. More specifically, smoke photography, with its alluring images of ghostly wisps of smoke, shows us that we don’t have to look very far to find this beauty.
In this edition of our Monday Inspiration series, we present examples of beautiful smoke photography and smoke art: a round-up of some of the best examples of photos and artworks where smoke dominates. At the bottom of this post are some links to tutorials on creating your own smoke photographs, as well as other resources on the subject.

Powerful Children Portraits

Today is the Blog Action Day. Today bloggers all across the globe are uniting and publishing posts related to poverty. We want to raise awareness, start a global discussion and add momentum to an important cause. Smashing Magazine strongly believes that together we can make a difference by informing people about the problem and donating money to charitable organizations.
We considered various options for this post: we could showcase designs or posters related to poverty, or we could scour the Web for poverty-related icons and wallpapers. But we decided to do something different. We decided to prove that each of us can help make poverty history.

Stunning Underwater Photos

Of all the different types of photography showcased on Smashing Magazine, underwater photography is probably one of the most difficult to practice. It requires a very specialized equipment and the knowledge of some advanced techniques to get a perfect picture. You need to get the correct exposure, accurate focus, controlled movement of your subject and a pleasing color balance; you also have to deal with low light. Underwater photos offen suffer from loss of color and contrast when taken at a significant depth. Such photos are always adjusted with color balance to help offset the blueish tint of the water.
Because underwater photography is a specialized art, relatively few photographers attempt it. But it offers many exciting and rare photographic opportunities for fresh and truly different vivid images. Most often, photographers use a traditional film or digital camera covered in a watertight casing. Professionals prefer to use special underwater cameras.

Victor Amor

Celebration Of High-Speed Photography

A digital camera, some fast-moving subject, and a bit of knowledge about how to take the best pictures of moving subjects will launch you on the road to some of the most interesting photographs you’ve ever taken. Although some blurring can be effective in communicating a sense of high-speed motion, some photographers want the subject to be frozen in time to get some pretty special photographic effects.
Below we present over beautiful examples of high-speed photography, which are supposed to provide you with some inspiration of what can be done with high-speed photography. We also showcase some truly stunning slow-motion videos. All the examples are linked to their sources. You can also explore further works of the photographers we’ve featured below.


Jeroen Rouwkema

Beautiful Examples Of Night Photography

Low light levels make night photography a challenging yet rewarding subject. The best results require specialized equipment, like SLR cameras, tripods, cable releases and flashguns. After sunset, the everyday world is magically transformed, and city buildings, fireworks, thunderstorms and the northern lights all become popular subjects.
We present amazing examples of night photography, photos, created by some hard-working and dedicated photographers. Take a look at their websites and portfolios, and you’ll find some links to how-to articles about night photography at the bottom of the post.

Bob West

Exploding Water Balloon Pictures

Photography is cool. But what’s cooler is when you combine taking pictures and breaking things. Water balloons are cheap and easy to clean up which makes them an easy choice for a photo session of destruction. Plus an exploding water balloon creates a pretty sweet image.


Prick by Sean Rogers

Interesting Beard Portraits

There are many ways to make portraits interesting. Having a cool beard is one of them. Let we see these amazing beard pictures below.


Alexei by Ricardo Liberato

Precious Pictures of Baby Feet

Babies grow up fast. Their feet seem to grow even faster. Here are the precious pictures of baby feet that will remind parents that their children don’t stay small for long.

I love kids feet by Nina Matthews

Assorted Knot Pictures

I spent a number of years in the Boy Scouts and learned many cool things about leadership, the outdoors, and other useful skills that I continue to build upon today. One of the first awards I earned was in knot tying which unfortunately, my knowledge of accomplishing an amazing knot has diminished. I’m probably better at taking pictures of knots than tying them. If you are too, then you’ll appreciate these 12 assorted knot pictures.


Nodo - Ruppui by Porfirio

Beautiful Butterfly Pictures

Butterflies are excellent subjects for photography. During the right season on a no wind day with some good early evening light, head down to your local park or favorite outdoor spot that has a lot of flowers and leaves which make great landing spots for butterflies. This is the perfect setting to take beautiful butterfly pictures like one of these pictures below.


Ignite Main Booster and Prepare for Liftoff by Ken Bosma