Splash!
February 20, 2012 By  malc birkett With  0 Comment

 

As with many ‘trade’ secrets, photographers, in general, are quite precious about the processes and techniques involved to arrive at the final shot – and quite rightly so, as often those techniques have been the result of painstaking tests, hours spent trying various lighting configurations and even longer hours spent in photoshop. A favorite topic on the Association of Photographers’ forum is ‘how to get the perfect droplet on a bottle of beer’ and, typically, there were about 50 tried and tested weird and wonderful techniques of how to achieve this, ranging from individual droplets of glycerine applied in photoshop, right through to my favorite trick using a light dusting of dulling spray and a fine spray of water. There’s always a fascination too, for ‘behind the scenes’ shots that reveal how it was all done – increasingly complex especially when CGI is involved, and I have to confess to examining every detail to see what cameras, lights, and people are involved. Not that I want to nick the techniques, but more than I feel the constant need to keep learning and adding to my armory. Honest guv!

I recently watched a clip of Andy Brookes presenting to an eager audience and revealing his painstaking process to arrive at the huge images he creates of landscapes, urban vistas and downright surreal cities in the sky. It’s well worth a watch – his images of Manchester’s lost underground world are really inspiring and I’m sure his talent and attention to detail will bring interesting commissions all over the world. Andy Brooks

I’ve always been fascinated by water or more specifically the randomness of the splashes – I’m sure there are scientists out there who will point to a given formula based on surface tension and so on, but when I was asked to create an image of food bubbling in water I had to resort to my old friend the glycerine. About 20 liters of the stuff to be precise. In its natural state, it’s just really thick liquid – transparent custard is quite a good description, but when added to water (about 30/70 in this case) it takes on an oily consistency and has to be mixed energetically with the water to create the right consistency for what was required. A combination of tubes and various cans of compressed air triggered simultaneously provided the right kind of bubbles and the food was dropped into the bubbling melée. Result. Client was happy. Next day spent wiping everything down with soapy water.

No behind the scenes shots on this occasion listeners, but I did want to share this link with you from artist Shinichi Maruyama who creates the most fantastic work by shooting water, often mixed with ink. The images do have a surreal quality but it’s also a fraction in time that is frozen, beautiful transparent or opaque shapes created randomly with the aid of mops, brushes and an extremely quick camera! The results are amazing and refer to Japanese calligraphy, but they have a compelling attraction and almost hypnotic effect on the viewer Shinichi Maruyama

Malcolm


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