Reverse Water Reflections
How much easier everything is when we work WITH the natural laws, rather than against them.
In these scenes, we use the reflective property of water to reverse the background and create these cool scenes. A bit of stop-action water pouring adds interest.
Note 1: These scenes were straight out of camera except for a bit of cropping, sharpening, and color adjusting to give the original orange and blue backgrounds a more Italian Bistro feel. The reverse water reflection effects had nothing to do with Photoshop, so EVERYONE CAN DO THIS without any additional editing software.
Here’s a diagram of the set up:
Click for Larger View
You could use additional colored sheets for more “stripes”. Unintentionally, I got a bit of unexpected white stripe reflected into the water because my colored backgrounds weren’t wide enough. But I liked it because it looked like the Italian flag. So that’s what I went with in the design and the reason I changed the background colors in Photoshop.
You can vary the backgrounds too!
For the three wine glasses photo, I’m next going to try using three colors as background instead of two, being careful to always have the color changes fall in the center of the glass.
It would be cool to use a narrow striped B/W or colored background. Try it with gift wrap paper too!
For a still life it’s a very easy set up.
To add motion to the scene, I simple set the camera’s self timer and started pouring water into the glass just before I sensed the shutter would trip. The stop-action water effect comes from the split-second strobe flash, not the higher shutter speed.
Note 2: Notice each of these photo uses the “secret” design trick of 3 elements. In the first, it’s three glasses, in the second, I added the clear marble because it just didn’t look right with only the glass and the pitcher. It’s a small item, not distracting, but it helps a great deal in the overall look.
Have fun with this…Give it a try some rainy day!
It’s a really simple and fun way to get that WOW factor without having to work too hard!
“Trick Photography and Special Effects” also has tons of cool ideas for the creative mind…have a look!
Click below to see why smart photographers are loving this new tell-all book…
