I'm gonna be in trouble...

nynfortoo · Jul 8, 2008

...but not really because it's only food colouring!

conradtan · Jul 8, 2008

Very cool...

MyNameIsChris · Jul 8, 2008

wow, I absolutely love this picture.

nynfortoo · Jul 9, 2008

Thanks guys

ClarkKent · Jul 9, 2008

Wow, thats awesome. Any hints as to how you captured this?

nynfortoo · Jul 9, 2008

ClarkKent said:
Wow, thats awesome. Any hints as to how you captured this?

Thanks a lot, Super Man

I set up my tripod over the bathroom sink, with my camera precariously poised a couple of inches away from the running tap, using my 10-22mm at 16mm so I didn't capture anything outside the basin. Set my ISO to 100 for a clean shot, and aperture to f/4 (the lowest I could go with this lens at that focal length) for as much light as I could get while still being able to get a degree of motion blur, and giving a slightly softer feel in the foreground.

Metered to give a fairly high-key exposure, and took some test shots until the empty basin was pushed right to the edge of the histogram. Only took 2 shots I must be getting used to this. Ended up at a shutter speed of 1/400s.

Then I used syringes filled with Red, Blue, Yellow and Black food colouring, to squirt into the basin and make some cool patterns. I left the water running gently over the plug to keep that area relatively clean, and just built up the layers of dye; some staying dry at the sides and giving a crisp focus, with the rest giving some nice motion blur where the water had either been or was actually pouring.

I set my camera to a 2-second timer, squirted more ink into the sink, then ducked out the way so I wouldn't catch a reflection in the metal plug while the shot went off.