Tag:frozen flower photography

7 Easy Creative Photography Ideas

Bevlea Ross 27 August 2020

Looking for something to do while stuck at home? Here are seven easy creative photography ideas. If you google ‘creative photography’, you will find it explained in many different ways. Creative Photography isn’t a cut-and-dried style such as Landscape, Portrait, Street Photography, etc. To me, creative photography is an image that is made rather than taken and one that has been created through experimentation and creative ideas. Images such as double exposure, splash, refractions, floating food, toys in dioramas, etc, all come under ‘creative’ photography. It’s also a genre you can do without leaving the house, which is extremely handy during covid lockdown.

1. Splash Photography

Splash photography is an easy one. Luckily, I am extremely suited to digital photography. The amount of film that would be wasted on this doesn’t bear thinking about – but with digital, it doesn’t matter if you dump 20 shots to get one keeper. For the image above, I placed a teaspoon on a mirror – poured yellow food colouring on the mirror and put red food colouring in the teaspoon. My camera was set up on a tripod and in high-speed continuous mode. I had more red food colouring in an eye dropper, and at the same time, as I squeezed off a drop, I fired off the shutter using a remote. Flinging fruit and vegetables into water is also a hugely fun project (and, again, hit and miss). There is very little science to it, setup, throw and shoot. Out of every burst, you will prob get one or two keepers.

Fish Tank = splash

For water splash photography, set up a fish tank against a non-reflective background (I prefer black). Fill the tank to about 3/4 full. Hard fruits such as lemons, limes, pomegranate, persimmon, apples, kiwi fruit and capsicums work the best. Berries are too light and soft – except for strawberries – you can use them but use them last as they will make the water murky as they get soggy. The full tutorial is HERE

Lighting

You do need a flash for splash to freeze the motion – Set your ISO to 200, F stop 11.0 and have a shutter speed of 1/125. You also need your camera on high-speed continuous. Wipe the outside of the glass between throws to save you from having to tidy it up in post. You will also need to tidy up the image using a clone tool, as you will get lots of unwanted drips and drops. It’s also an image that will look totally underwhelming until it’s edited. In the above image, you can see before – straight out of the camera, and after, with editing. I cloned out the distractions, bumped up the colour, deepened the blacks and applied a sharpen.

2. Crystal Balls

Crystal balls are popular at the moment, with even FB groups dedicated to them. The balls are available on eBay, sized from tiny up to large. I have a 60mm and 80mm but use the 60mm the most. They are heavy if you are going to carry them around in your bag all day, as they are solid glass. You also need to be very careful of fires with them. I had mine sitting on the console in the car as I drove, and the sun coming in went through the ball and melted the console underneath the ball! It now stays in a little drawstring bag when not in use. The ball will reverse the image but depending on the amount of blur you have, you can rotate the image so what’s in the ball is right way up. I like to shoot at around F2.8 – 4.5 to really blur the background out; that way, I can flip the image and have the image in the ball right way up

3. Oil and Water

Oil and water is one of the easiest to do at home. Mainly because you probably have everything you already need there. Glass dish, oil, water. Good to go. I did a full tutorial on oil and water HERE.

4. Little Planets

Little planets are images made from your panoramic images. Using Photoshop, you manipulate the image to look like a little planet. It’s easy and loads of fun. The tutorial for Little Planets is HERE

5. Frozen Flowers

Frozen flowers require flowers, of course – and water. I prefer distilled water (available at shops such as Auto Barn or Supercheap) as distilled water will give you a clearer, less cloudy look than tap water. And no, boiling the tap water first won’t help. The full tutorial on Frozen Flowers is HERE

6. International Camera Movement

Intentional camera movement is where you hit the shutter and deliberately move the camera to give you an abstract look. It’s not the same as an out of focus image as you actually do focus on your subject – and then move the camera. It works best on images with straight lines in them, such as trees or horizons on the beach, etc. The tutorial for ICM can be found HERE

7. Multiplicity

Multiplicity is so simple yet loads of fun. Set your tripod up in one spot, giving good coverage of the area you will be in. You then simply take a photo (using your remote), move to another area, take another photo, repeat, repeat. You can change your clothes between shots to show a progression of your movement over time or interact with yourself. Or you can stay in the same clothes to show a smaller interval of time, or you can move around fast 😉 Once you have taken all your images, load them into a stack in Photoshop and, using layer masks, rub out the areas to expose where you are. The full tutorial is HERE Have fun with your creative photography. Be warned, once you have tried it, you will be looking for all sorts of weird setups to do 🙂

How To Do Frozen Flower Photography

Bevlea Ross 15 April 2020

Frozen flower photography is fun. It’s a tad frustrating and very much a unique ‘one of a kind’ image, as no two blocks will ever look alike.

Go ahead and Google ‘frozen flower photography’, and you will get lots of tutorials on how to do it. While the basics, such as building your ice up slowly, are in all of them, they also differ on many finer points. I tried several methods. Most were pretty much unsuccessful. (that’s a kind way of saying total failures).

Through trial and error, this is what worked for me.

Note: Freezing your block completely can take up to 24 hrs or more, depending on the size of your container. Freeze it the day before you want to photograph it.

Supplies

For your frozen flower photography, you will need, apart from a freezer, camera and tripod, the following:

Flowers – something not too big. Rosebuds work well, as do daisies, cosmos and gerberas. Not Lillies; they are too big. The bigger the flower, the bigger the container, the more water, the longer the freezing takes… etc., etc.
A container – it needs to be at least twice as deep as your chosen flower. A smoother base is better than a highly patterned one, too. However, small ridges or brand stamps don’t matter. The container must also be freezer-safe.
Distilled water – yes, you can use tap water or boiled water. (see the bit about failures). Tap water will be cloudy. I got the best results with distilled water. The distilled water was nice and ‘almost’ clear. Apart from bubbles. More on that later. Demineralised water also works, though distilled is cheaper.

Method

You need to fully encase your flowers in a block of ice. Just putting them in the container and filling them with water won’t work. Flowers contain oxygen, and they will float to the surface and bob around like apples in a barrel. We need to anchor the flowers to the ice and build it up slowly with the ice setting between layers.

Add a couple of centimetres of water to your container and freeze solid.
When your water is frozen, remove it from the freezer and arrange your flowers on the ice to your liking. If you are using rosebuds, they will look the same on top and bottom so that you can shoot from both sides. If using daisies, for example, place them face down and arrange them to your liking.
Slowly add a little bit more water.. about a cm or so. Too much, and you will melt the layer below, and they will float. Back to square one. Trust me. I am not guessing here. The second they start floating, STOP. Maybe soak a little bit of water back out. Pop it back in the freezer for another couple of hours. Ignore the strange looks the family is giving you
Remove your container from the freezer and check if it’s frozen. If you still have water sloshing around below the surface, return to the freezer and leave for another hour or so. If it’s frozen solid, add just enough water to completely cover the flowers—about 1 to 1.5cm above them. Too much, and you could melt the layer below again or find it hard to shoot through the ice to photograph the flowers. Pop it back in the freezer again
Recheck it a couple of hours later.. or the next morning. When it’s frozen solid, remove it and place it on a draining board upside down for around ten minutes. It should then slide out of the container easily.
Check the uppermost side when it comes out. This is the side you are shooting. If you have marks from the bottom of the container, wipe them over gently with a warm cloth or your hand to even them out.

Photographing your flowers

You have a couple of options here. You can place it upright, against a window with natural light coming through, to light the flowers. Another option is on a white backdrop or board and light it from the sides and back with a torch.

I added a paper towel folded into four under the block to stop it from sliding around on the perspex. It will get wet, but that doesn’t matter. The point is to stop the block from sliding off the perspex; it can’t be seen if your background is white. If you put it against a window inside, place a towel below it to avoid a puddle.

On a white background, using tap water and a 24-80 lens

On a white background, using distilled water and macro

I used a standard lens such as a 24-70 for some shots and the macro for others. I also shot brighter than the camera was suggesting by lowering my shutter speed (it was on a tripod, so no problem). As the block started melting, the failed tap water ones looked good with a macro. Little air bubbles will form in your creation from the oxygen trapped in the flowers – these look great captured with a macro.

Distilled water, macro lens and against a window

You have a couple of hours to play with your block and will get different shots as the block continues to melt. It is fun but time-consuming getting it to the frozen stage. But then again, what else do we all have now but time on our hands.

Update: I have now done a tutorial with frozen autumn leaves.