Awesome Smoke

JBV Creative has been playing with designs for a vortex cannon that fires a puff of smoke and a blast of air to create smoke rings. He’s refined his creation into this handheld unit with a mechanical iris to adjust the size of its smoke rings and an LED ring light to illuminate them.

Performance artist Butch Locsin creates amazing self-portraits that combine handmade skull masks with colorful smoke. Both the live footage and still photos of his performances are among the most visually striking we’ve seen. Check out his YouTube and Instagram channels for more images or to order prints.

While the term “smokescreen” is used to describe a ruse that conceals the truth, its origins are much more literal – a tactic in which the military conceals operations with smoke. In this 1923 footage, a plane drops a curtain of titanium tetrachloride to hide ships, a technique that would go on to be used during WWII.

While we have no idea why two of these these large wind turbines in India burst into flames, but one of them ended up producing an accidental spectacle, as its blade spun at crazy speeds and created a giant spiral of black smoke before eventually giving in.