Creative projection through my photos of importance of saving water - 'A drop of water can mean the world to someone thirsty!'
Colorful and artsy images to catch attention and focus on the importance of water drops was my objective for this continued exercise. I was amazed with the kind of shapes I could create - just take a look!
Water drop collision sculptures!
I had talked in one of my earlier posts about the rig I built for water drop collision photography. Here it is again just to show how simplistic the actual rig is.
My setup - just for reference again
I captured some great photos with it earlier but what I had not realized was that the adrduino Uno based control of the solenoid valve and flash trigger timing allowed me to go even further, allowing me to create some interesting shapes.
Here is a screen capture of the arduino program I wrote. As the geeks among us can realize, it allows me to plug in different values on the timing of drops and size of drops etc. so that I can try to create interesting shapes.
Arduino program I wrote to control timing of drops to create different shapes
Another interesting thing I found that I could vary the viscosity of water drops by adding some thickening agents and get interesting shapes.
Added to this - I started using colorful backgrounds, food dye colors for drops of water (both in bottom tray and solenoid controlled drops) and the results are for us to see and judge below:
The mushroom -
I had red food color in the tray of water below and yellow drops dropping in it to create this image. The stark white background enhances the effect of two colors colliding...
This shape is obtained when a second drop collides with the tall column of water caused by first drop falling in a pool of water. The collision is caught in early stages by triggering the flash early..
The Umbrella -
The umbrella is captured with the same process as the Mushroom above but by triggering the flash a bit later to capture the collision of the second drop as it cascades down to form the umbrella
The Beach umbrella 😀
It took many many attempts to get this perfect umbrella. I used just one color on the water drop but used some fancy bokeh background to get a colorful effect...
The Sunflower
I was actually trying to get an umbrella but had not gotten the timing and size of drops perfect. As a result, after the first drop causing the water column to shoot up, I got a small drop splashing on it and then a big drop splashed on it, resulting in this shape with a core and petals like look that looks like a beautiful flower.
The symmetry and reflection experiment
It is not always necessary to use colors in the drops themselves. Interesting backgrounds with symmetry and reflections of the drops and background form stunning images as well. This image uses just a simple 2 colored rectangles an background to produce this effect. Of course, it takes a bit of patience to align the background perfectly with the splash and also to wait till ripples die down to get the reflection properly.
The vocano!
I was playing around with color gels on my flash and at the same time experimenting with viscosity of the water (using some additives). I got this amazing image that looks like lava erupting and flowing down. What do you think?
Child on a man's shoulder - holding a ball!
There is always an aspect of randomness in falling drops. Some nozzle friction, a slight movement of air while drops are falling etc. always produce some effects that are totally unforeseen. This great water sculpture got created for a split second when a yellow drop misfired and interacted with the red rebound jet in a weird manner to create this image that looks like a child holding a ball and sitting on his father's shoulder!
This image convinces me that through technology of high speed photography, we can create art!! I rest my case.😀
I hope these beautiful images can be used by everyone to emphasize the importance of even a drop of water and spread the message to save water!
Do you think geeky things like high speed photography and arduino based water drop control can produce art? I think so and spent some time on it - Was all the effort worth it? Have you tried something like this? I look forward to suggestions and shared experiences from our expert community members.
Do comment freely and let me know.
Please comment freely and let me know your opinion. I will try to bring many different types of wildlife photos/macro/Astro posts to the community. Feedback and comments are welcome,. I am still learning many techniques and always value feedback from experts in this community.
Have a nice day everyone. Cheers!
