Color Challenge - Monday Red - Water Drops

Water drops make the most amazing shapes when they hit water. This session was my first experimentation with photographing falling water drops, and it was a true exercise in patience!

Initially I used an eyedropper to create the water drops, but I soon discovered that it was very difficult to use the eyedropper and also control the camera.

After a lot of mucking around, I ended up filling a resealable plastic bag with water and clipping it to a mobile towel rack which I placed over a container of water. I put a pin prick into the corner of the bag and, voila! A steady stream of water drops!!!

The second difficulty I ran into was lighting. I started off by using a very high powered work light. This got very hot and it felt dangerous having the cable running so close to the water. The images still came out very dark.

I changed to off camera flash which I needed to place just about on top of the water drop to get it bright enough. I only have one flash. Many water drop enthusiasts use several flashes. I had to put the flash inside a plastic bag to protect it from the splashes.

Once I started using the flash, my pictures were brighter, but I had to slow down the shutter speed to 1/250. This is slow for a moving object, so some of the images aren't as sharp as I would like.

To achieve the bright reflection in the water, I needed to find a colourful, brightly lit object. I used table lamps to to do the lighting.

So what was the reflected object that looks kinda like a cool superhero type of thing? Well... I must confess that it is a playing card from our set of The Wiggles snap! Can you guess which Wiggle it is?

After this session, I started researching how people get those amazing shots where you see water drops colliding. I discovered that they buy a kit online that controls the water drop release speed, can release multiple water drops to create interesting effects, and the rig also controls the camera. Basically, the whole process is automated! Where is the art in that?

Happy red Monday people! Seajai

Here is the ColorChallenge list by @kalemandra & @colorchallenge: