The making of: Splash January 21
The image in the header was shot specifically for this site and as the new graphic logo for Ben Peoples Photography. It makes a nice case study into how I work.
I wanted a dynamic shot, with nearly netural colors, but some color.
I liked the idea of doing a splash shot, which are fun and technically challenging. The key is that glasses are hard to light (they’re all reflection) and capturing a splash requires a really short flash duration. A flash works by storing up a lot of energy, and then discharging it through ionized xenon. The lower the power setting, the faster the discharge, and the shorter the duration of the flash. So I started with the flashes turned all the way down. I turned the main flash up a little hotter, around 1.5 stops above its bottom setting. My initial idea was to put the glass on a clear acrylic sheet with a sheet of diffusion and a small flash under. The main flash with an 18″ softbox, I positioned level with the glass, to the right. I also tried a black piece of foamcore behind. I ended up with this uninspiring shot.
So, first I moved the softbox up to about four feet above the glass to maximize its reflections, then put a piece of white paper up behind the glass. I was getting pretty rotten reflections from the bottom light, so I needed something black to reflect there. I plopped another piece of foamcore below the glass, and moved part of the diffusion to get a direct shot to the white paper, and still provide a little diffusion into the bottom of the glass (giving it something to reflect).
I did a couple of test shots with water to see how it works, popped those onto my computer to verify focus and exposure. Since that all worked out, I switched to the bourbon and a cherry. You’ll notice, flipping through the unretouched shots, it makes quite a mess. I managed to keep the glass itself relatively clean, but the backdrop was a little too close, and got splattered. There was no risk of the camera getting splattered– I shot this with a 70-300mm zoom lens, all the way at 300mm, the camera is a good 8 or 9 feet away on a tripod, being triggered by an infrared remote.
You can see the whole evolution of the shot in the gallery, here. Questions? Comments? Leave them below.
Katy Jan 28
How did you time the dropping of the cherry, the flash and the camera to actually get the flash captured?
Ben Jan 28
Very carefully.
I was standing over the glass, dropping the cherry and using the infrared remote in the other hand tried to time the shutter.
That’s actually why there’s some shots with the cherry not quite in. It basically went “drop, click, check” (repeat about 12 times). Once I got the timing down, which took about 2 or 3 tries, I didn’t need to check the LCD on the camera after each shot.