The Shoot that Almost Was Not

This morning before dawn I headed out for a seascape shooting session.

I was originally scheduled to head to the Northern Beaches district yesterday morning, but I knew that that the sky was going to be completely plain, so I decided to abandon that shoot.

Photographically, I dislike cloudless skies and will not even get out of bed if the sky is going to be in that condition.  Before committing to a dawn shoot, I use a tool called SkippySky, which shows a visual representation of forecast cloud cover.  So far, it has been very accurate, and I rely on it when making a decision whether to proceed or abort.

Yesterday, I heard that this morning was looking promising.  I checked SkippySky, and it confirmed what I had heard.  Rather than drive a long way north after a long day and insufficient sleep, I decided to head to a spot much closer, which had yielded some very pleasing images several times in the past.

When the alarm clock assasulted me into consciousness at 5:15am, I was still feeling decidedly drained, and made the decision to go back to bed.

However, after a few minutes back in bed, I got that nagging feeling that I might miss a good sky and regret not venturing out to capture it, so I headed outside to check the sky, and there was plenty of decent cloud, just as SkippySky had predicted.

I shortly thereafter made the decision to head to my pre-determined destination and see what the morning would bring.

Here is one of the images I captured under this morning‘s moody sky:

The Smoke Machine of the South

I am glad that I did decide to venture out, despite tiredness very nearly stopping me in my tracks.

While there was not much colour in the sky, the scene was quite moody, and the light made exposure quite easy.  I shot a number of images along a rock shelf in South Cronulla, and concentrated on a few strong compositions with flowing/crashing water.

Hawaiian Mercury

It has been a few weeks since I have been out for a photoshoot, and this afternoon I felt a desire to create an image.

I decided to re-visit water droplet macro photography, so I set about rigging a ‘studio’ to shoot some water droplets of water.

Here is the result:

Hawaiian Mercury

In my initial setup, I placed a tray of water on the lounge room coffee table, and used one of my cymbal boom stands to suspend a ziplock bag of water over the tray.

Using a needle, I made a small hole in the base of the bag so that water could drip at a consistent rate and in a consistent position.

I set up one of my Speedlites, attached a PocketWizard PLUS II to it and the camera, and placed the flash at 45 degrees camera left, pointing at the backdrop.  I wanted a colourful pattern to backlight the subject, and used my Hawaiian shirt, which produced a pleasing result.

My initial plan was to shoot the water droplets landing in the tray of water, but I found that my setup just was not working well, so I changed my approach and set out to suspend the water droplets in mid-air.  I moved the ‘studio’ to the bathroom, and used the bathroom sink, with the tap serving as a water source.

I repeated the setup with the flash and Hawaiian shirt backdrop, and shot many frames to capture a pleasing water droplet formation.

The lighting and staging was not a huge challenge, but achieving sharp focus on the dripping water was particularly difficult.  I shot well over 500 frames (probably closer to 600).

The problem is that even after achieving focus on the water emanating from the tap, the thickness of the water increases as the drop falls, which means it is difficult to accurately gauge focus, as the subject’s proximity to the focal plane changes subtly, but enough to become out of focus!

The difficulty is further compounded by the use of a macro lens, to which I had also attached a 1.4x tele-converter, so the depth of field and margin for error was even narrower.

I never quite landed the tack-sharp result I wanted, but I am still pleased with the image.

Water droplet photography can certainly chew up a few hours and incite frustration, but when one lands a pleasing image, it is worth the effort.

It has been a few years since I dabbled with this sort of photography.   Macro photography in general is enormously challenging for me (I am predominantly a landscape photographer, which is worlds apart), and the challenge is increased by the use of water, which introduces timing and focus issues on top of the inherent focus/DOF challenge macro photography presents.

There is plenty of creative image making to be achieved using water droplets as a subject.  There is more reading and experimentation ahead of me, and I suspect some frustration too, but it is all part of the process.