Water Drop Magic – a fun photo technique

This is what I do when I’ve got some spare time to play!  I’m calling this “water drop magic” because with a simple technique you can create some totally cool photographs. The magic of this technique is not so much capturing the water drops splashing, but taking advantage of the reflective properties of water.

Below is a picture of my setup – a glass baking dish that I filled with about 1” of water and a cheap, old flash that I connected to the PC terminal of my camera.  There’s also two bottles – one I filled with water and the other with a really watery gray acrylic paint mixture. I also am showing a small painting that I used to capture the color.  I used several different small abstract paintings as well as colored papers to get the different color patterns in the shots.

Uses for a Broken Wine Glass

Most people would just throw out a broken wine glass, but not me! At least not when I can use it in other creative ways. How did the glass get broken? Well, I was using it to get some fun water shots.  I got several nice shots, but then I got clumsy and knocked it off  the light stand it was clamped onto.  Oops…..

I wasn’t too upset though, seeing as I knew I could use it otherwise.  So I’m starting with a couple of “before” shots, and then some “after” shots, using the broken remains for a final water shot and then as a prop with some 14K gemstone rings.

All photos © Colleen D. Gjefle, 2012

 

And if you’re curious, below is my favorite photo from the shoot,
using a different wine glass and a cherry.