Water Drops And Splashes

Recently, I followed Alex Koloskov at G+ and their site MasteringSplash. They've got truly inspiring photos on water splashes and I thought I should give it  a try. Before I went on splashes, I revisited some water drops and see what I can come up this time -- a 'Growling Bear'?

Growling Bear

I think I can see a 'Growling Bear' in that lucky water drop formation. Do you see it too? Give it a little imagination just like when we try to see an animal or something in the clouds.

I used a 16 fl. oz. plastic cup as a container and a drinking straw to create my water drops. This was all done with one hand on the trigger and one hand to hold the straw. It was all manual and no other triggers used. The good thing about water drops photography is that there'll be a lot of variety in the shots you can take especially if it's all done by hand. Though there's also a not-so-good side of it if done manually -- inconsistent drop fall as some drops may fall out of the depth-of-field (DOF) and rendering some drops to be out of focus. Check out the next photo.

Some of the 'Green Berets' are a bit out of focus (top part) if to be looked upon closely. I wanted a more crisper water drops but I am not sure when I can have a similar formation. Out of all the shots I made only a few made the cut and only these two photos are the winners.

After making some water drops, I tried on some water splashes. It's a challenging task as there is no reference point in the air where I can aim at to throw water into to make the splashes. Most of my shots were blank shots as the water splash was out of camera's frame - either I threw it too high, too low, too far to the left, or too far to the right. Remember, I was holding the trigger on my other hand to take the shot and the other hand holding a cup with water doing the throwing. Here's the best of the bunch.

I opted for the black background rather than white background which I usually use as these shots required my two flashes placed at camera left and right to be used on each single shot. Having used all my flashes for the subject I didn't have any extra light for the background and producing black backgrounds are easier than producing white background.

I'm lucky enough to get these shots into the frame. Well, there goes my first try on water splashes and I'm sure I'll be giving it another try on my next chance to get things wet.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Camera and miscellaneous gear don't mix well with water so please take necessary precautions. You've been warned!

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You might be asking if I used colored water to do this shots and the answer is no but I could have used but I didn't have access to food coloring or anything that would colorize the water that I'll be using. I used plain tap water and the color I added in post. I used GIMP's Colorize function to induce color into the water. For example the 'Growling Bear', it looked like this before it was 'Colorized'.

Before 'Colorize'

After 'Colorize'

Related Post:

• Water Drop Project - my first attempt on water drops photography and a little tutorial on how I did it with the built-in flash.
• Shining Pearl - lucky shot on other attempt on water drops photography using the built-in flash.
• Revisiting Water Drops - another visit on water drops photography with some try on background lighting.
• Back To Water Drops - trying to get some background reflected into the water drop.