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In this article I will explain how to use sparkling to take great pictures. Taking good photos with this technique is quite easy, so any professional or amateur can benefit from it.
You may wonder how sparkling water can be used in the field of artistic photography. Well, the bubbles it produces when an object is immersed in it can give a unique touch to what would have just been another picture. Hopefully, the following examples clearly illustrate my point of view:
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| Sparkling Straws | Paperclips Explosion |
The list of materials is really short; you only need to gather the following items:
As you can imagine, the bubble size is not going to be very big. For this reason, maybe a macro lens is not required, but it is strongly recommended. To learn more about macro photography, you may want to read this wiki article: 'Macrophotography'
What objects can be photographed with this technique? I have personally used small things that everyone has at home: pencils, paper clips, straws, etc. For me, the most important thing is not so much the object, but how to convey an idea by using it.
Having chosen the object of the photo, you must now find a proper container, ideally it should be transparent. You will then have much more freedom to move, you can easily position the camera to get a good shot and you can move the lights to illuminate the scene at any point of interest.
If you use an opaque container, you can only illuminate the scene from above and the results will probably not be very good.
Finally, the tripod and shutter release are not absolutely necessary, but they are always great allies when you are doing this type of work: you can adjust the frame to the millimeter, avoid camera shake and focus exactly where you want to. Personally, I could not live without these two items.
I don't know why they appear, but any object immersed in sparkling water is quickly surrounded by thousands of bubbles.
Anyway, I will give you an important advice to save time in post-production work: before immersing an object, clean it to get rid of dust or other unwanted particles.
This will avoid having to clean annoying spots such as those in the next picture:
Obviously, depending on the objects photographed, you will have to change the water regularly.
I tried several brands of sparkling water, and I have not noticed any significant difference between them. So which one should you use? Well, in a session, you can use up to several bottles so I simply choose the cheapest I can find at the local supermarket.
The first thing to note is that the bubbles are transparent and in many ways they are like photographing glass. Therefore special care must be taken with light use. In the tutorial 'Glass Photography Techniques' you can find more information.
Another important aspect is the exposure time. Bubbles come and go quickly, especially when you first immerse your object. You can proceed in two ways:
Finally, I'll leave you with another tip for successfully getting good compositions:
Why do this? Well, if you shoot more than one object at a time it can be virtually impossible to group them in a certain way. Chances are that when you move one, one of the others one will move of their own accord.
Taking photographs using sparkling water is really easy and you'll be thrilled by the fast results you get.
The biggest challenge is to find the perfect object for your picture, this can be laborious, but I bet that if take your eyes off this screen and take a look around, you will start to get some good ideas.
I encourage you to try it for yourself; it is certainly a perfect winter weekend project.
