Splash Photography

Splash Photography can be a very fun and creative style of photography. 

In this post I'm going to take you through the set-up that is required to get this kind of shot.

Here's what you'll need to get started:

• Remote trigger for your camera (only necessary if you're taking this shot by yourself and don't have an assistant to throw the water)
• Water
• A dark backdrop (I used dark brown and later brought the shadows down to make it black because I didn't have a black backdrop. If you have black, that would be the best.)
• A black, reflective surface (I used a black granite tile)
• A subject. (I used an apple)
• A camera
• A flash
• A table to set it all up on

The first thing you need to do is set up your props.

Now that you have everything set up, it's time to decide where you want the water coming from. I tried it from several different angles, but what turned out the best for me was throwing the water at a very, very slight angle from the top of the subject.

Set up your exposure for the shot, and expose the image so that it's just a little darker than you want; the flash will fill in any extra light your shot will need.

For this shot, we're going to keep our shutter 1/200th of a second or faster. If you set up your flash to be fast enough, you shouldn't need a ridiculously fast shutter speed as the flash will freeze the motion for you.

Take a few test shots to make sure your flash is working. Now thee are a few ways you can precede from here. If you have an off-camera flash, you can set it up as a slave flash and either put it on a flash stand or have someone hold it pointing toward the side of the subject. You could also just use it on the camera by connecting it to the hotshoe if you're subject is lit well enough on the sides. (I did this for my shot because I was outside. If you're indoors you may want some lighting maybe even on both sides.)

Setup complete? Flash set up? Camera ready to go? Okay, now let's get to the fun part!

If you're taking the shot by yourself, grab your remote trigger and get your water ready.

All you have to do now is throw the water at the same time that you trigger your shutter.
After you have taken several images, you can combine them in Photoshop to get the splash patterns that you want. (But if you plan to do this, make sure that apple and camera stay perfectly still during your different shots or they won't line up)
After you tweak the contrast, brightness, and saturation, you're done!