Capture dancing paint

James Paterson uses loud speakers and music to create lively photos of boogying paints

Use a speaker to make paint jump for arty shots

Sometimes joy comes from creating a great image. Other times, the end result is more of an added bonus, and instead it’s the process behind the image that’s the most joyous part. This project definitely falls into the latter category… It can result in wonderfully vibrant photos, but the technique is just as compelling.

That’s because in this project, we get to make paint dance! You get this unique effect by placing drops of paint on top of a speaker, then playing a song at high volume. As the speaker rapidly kicks out air, the paint jumps to the beat. There’s something hugely appealing about the idea of capturing music in this visual way.

Sure, the speaker is simply a means of creating vibrations, so the music is somewhat secondary, but you will get variations between different songs depending on the rhythm. So the choice of music gives character to the shot, and you’ll get different patterns and motions from the sound of Beethoven, James Brown, or Daft Punk. In a way, it’s music in paint form.

It also happens very quickly, so we need to get set up to capture the high-speed action. This involves a Speedlight and an understanding of flash duration. Put simply, flash duration is the length of time the burst of flash takes from start to finish.

Shooting in a darkened room, we use the fast duration of the Speedlight to freeze the motion of the paint. This way, the flash duration effectively becomes the shutter speed. Over the next few pages we’ll look at how it’s done.