After seeing how much fun I had a few days back with the Oil and Water Shoot I thought I would have a quick look on the ol' interweb and see if there was anything else I could play with. After searching for 'ideas for photography at home' I came across some images similar to this, showing various objects (usually food) being dropped in water.
Looks pretty cool don't you think?
Now, this isn't a new concept, and its not ground breaking or anything, but I haven't tried it before, and it looked like a fun way to spend an afternoon... so here we go!
Firstly, lets talk setup.
We needed a large container to half-fill with water. This might look like a fish tank, but I think its actually something that people use to keep insects in... I do know that she bought it from a pet shop several years ago. What ever it was, it was large, water-tight, and had clear glass panels which were perfect for shooting through. As a bonus it had an LED light source in the lid which was useful.
However, when shooting these images, the main bit is to capture the splash as the fruit enters the water. To do this we need a high shutter speed, and for that we need light. Lots and lots of light.
We used two speedlights, positioned on either side of the tank. These were set of by a wireless trigger on top of the camera. The camera itself was on a tripod. I could have done these hand held, but the fruit was being dropped into the same place each time. I might as well make use of the tripod and pre-focus on where the fruit were going to appear.
A quick 5 mins of testing on a floating strawberry was required to make sure settings were correct and the flashes were providing enough light without over doing it and over exposing everything.
I think that floating strawberry looks good to me
This kind of technique is very hit and miss. My partner dropped the fruit in and then I'd press the shutter, and then I saw what I captured.
There were plenty of misses, when I caught the action too late....
...and the odd bit of poor communication on my part...
"don't hold it so high, hold it a little lower"
Which resulted in her hand being in the frame. But with a bit pf practice, I started to get results
Ta-Da!
Raspberries were sharp and in focus, the splash was interesting, and composition in the fame worked. We swapped over and she had a turn taking photos while I was the 'fruit-dropper'. After she had captured images she was happy with, it was time to change the setup.
'Fruit splashing in water' is something that makes me think of Summer, so I picked a bright blue colour (blue sky or blue sea) to use as a background:
There are again many, many out-takes!
First I was too early on the trigger...
...and then too late!
Eventually after much trial and error, I was rewarded with the shot below, nicely lit, interesting splash, pin sharp AND the strawberry was in the frame too!
Job done, there was just enough time for one last change in the setup... this time we went for black...
I often use Black as the background for all my Insect Portraits. I really like how it looks, and in my most humble of opinions it looks more elegant, more sophisticated... just better in everyway.
Which is why the picture below is currently my favorite of this set so far.
Just look at it! Its flippin' gorgeous!
Just for the record, there was photoshop used in the editing of this image, all of which was aimed at cleaning the water of dirt, and tiny bubbles that were distracting to the overall image.
But the rest of the image, the strawberry and the splash, were as captured.
After I managed this beauty of an image, I passed it over to my partner who had a go with this setup with the black background. Once she got shots that she was happy with, I asked:
Is there anything else you wanted to try?
And she replied..."what about tomatoes?"
So to finish, here is a lovely shot of some tomatoes being dropped in water... enjoy!
Thank you for reading, I hope you found it interesting.
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