All images by Ken Hermann. Used with Creative Commons Permission.
Looking for some explosive photography inspiration? Whether you’re fond of making your photos pop with color, or simply find vibrant hues hypnotic, you’ll enjoy the burst of colors in this intriguing work by Danish photographer Ken Hermann.
Seemingly experimental in nature, the photo set, simply entitled Smoke by Copenhagen-based photographer Ken Hermann, clouds the frames with colorful smoke. It can be called minimalist in this regard, for we don’t really see anything but the scaffold holding the smoke bombs and some unobtrusive backgrounds. Still, anyone who is delighted with splashes of color in art and photography will find this set an intriguing exercise in mixing colors. Look at the photos long enough and smoke closely resembles those trippy high-speed photographs of ink in water, just more airy than fluid.
A quick browse around Ken’s Behance portfolio led me to another fiery set called Explosions and Explosion2.0, which are equally, if not more eye-catching, shots at making firework-fueled art. While this set feels more action-packed than Smoke, I see it as the earlier project that sparked the idea in Ken to do a chromatic reprise. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, as the saying goes.
This set also makes me wonder if Ken is actually cooking up something awesome with smoke bombs. Looking around his portfolio, I also saw some pretty interesting documentary portraits, and it would be a visual treat to see him do something like Bökh or SHAMAN with a burst of color. It’s just one of the many creative possibilities he can play around with for later projects if this was indeed a visual experiment, given that other photographers have used smoke bombs to add color to action shots or even make wedding photos look magical.
If you liked this colorful set, you most likely want to see more of his excellent work. Check out Ken Hermann’s impressive Behance portfolio and website for his other projects.
