Photo Plus

Project 3

We’ve all seen those ink drop photos rebounding off the surface. But here peter Travers shows you how to capture amazing paint shapes underwater

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Capture out-ofthis-world abstract images of paint underwater

Think about the images we’ve seen from the Hubble Space Telescope where nebulae, distant stellar nurseries, form new stars in the universe. Well, those same laws of motion can be seen here on earth. When making a cup of tea, you’ll surely have noticed the wonderful swirling patterns created as the milk’s poured in. But what if our cup was made of glass? We could watch the milk unfurl below the surface instead. Well, switch that cup for a glass fish tank, and change the milk to paint, and we suddenly have a very photogenic subject.

Once lit, we can freeze this flow of paint mid-motion with our Canon DSLR and capture a slice of time. All it takes is a little patience and a lot of water. In fact, we only need a few basic things to get started. We have a glass fish tank and we’re using acrylic paint. Because it’s oil-based it won’t instantly mix with the water. Instead, it’ll hold together as it drifts through the tank creating more sculpture-like shapes.

In terms of camera gear we have a couple of flashguns. We’re using Canon Speedlites. If you only have one, that’s fine. But you’ll get better results with two. We’ve plugged a wireless trigger into each flashgun, and a transmitte­r into the hotshoe of our Canon DSLR. Use hotshoe footplates to stand the flashguns on the table, or use stands for them if you’re using a smaller table setup than we’ve used.

We’re using a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro lens to get in close to the paint-drop action and fill the frame, but you could just as easily use a standard zoom or telephoto zoom lens. However, you’d have to position the camera further away from the tank because the minimum focusing distance of a non-macro telephoto lens will be farther away.

This photo project is all about the preparatio­n as it takes around 15 minutes to clean out and refill the tank ready to shoot each time. But it takes just a few seconds to nail the shot.

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