Glass, RainX, Flower, Water, and Shoot

This is a trick that I’ve seen done before, but finally got around to giving it a try myself.

Get a piece of glass and apply some rainX . RainX is found in the automotive section and it is used on your car windshield to cause the rain to bead up and easily run off.  The rainX will help the water to bead up on your glass.

I don’t like to take a lot of time making elaborate set-ups so I just find what every is lying around the house that will work, so nothing sophisticated.  In the garage I found my cart I used to haul my art show stuff just waiting to be used for this project.

I placed the glass on top of the cart, and used a spray bottle filled with water to create the bubbles.

Underneath, I placed a green print that I made, but you can use any material that has a nice solid color.

I needed my Gerbera flower to be somewhat close to the glass, so propped it up with a coke can that was in the garage.  The flower was large enough to hide the coke can underneath.

Positioned the camera overhead and tried to get the front of the lens as parallel as I could to the glass. Moved the camera in close enough to fill the frame with the Gerbera flower.

I experimented shooting at different f/stops for depth of field, and wanted to show a little details in flower below.

I placed my focus on the flowers within the waterdrops and the f/22 seemed to give me the amount of focus I needed to get the waterdrops in focus and reach down and give the image a little focus on the flower.

I just used the natural light that was in the garage.

That’s it, and then go into Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro 4 and Viveza 2 and do some processing.

Check out my website and also join my Macro Photo Club. http://www.tinylandscapes.com

“Please, may I place your images on your wall?”

Your family inevitably says,

“Can I see some of your shots?”

You say, “Yeah, let me get them edited real quick.”

They roll their eyes.

Because they know it always takes you FOREVER to get around to editing your work.

All they’ve seen is that one decent iPhone shot you posted to Facebook while you were there.

In fact, you haven’t even gotten around to editing your last vacation full of RAW files.

So the OVERWHELM begins to set in.

Which keeps you even further from just getting started with editing.

And it’s going to be as hard as ever to pick which ones are your BEST.

Then, once you finally do begin editing, you end up exporting too many images and sharing ALL of them with your family and friends.

Which makes them not want to ask to see your pictures next time. You know what I mean.

What if all of this could be different?

What if the day you arrived home from that big trip, you had a Pro photographer to hold your hand and make sure you knew which 10-15 were your very best?

Then, that Pro delivered the very best one of those Finalists to your door to hang on your wall as a huge canvas print! (Yes, you get the final say about which one is printed for your wall).

Too good to be true, right?

Not for long.

Please, please, please do yourself (and your family) a huge favor and meet my friend and Pro photographer Paul Hassell who has been perfecting this concept for almost two years.

Paul is founder of ALIVE Photo, a community of Pro photographers who exist to inspire you and get you UNSTUCK!

Click HERE if you’d like to CRUSH that feeling of “photographer’s block,” forever.

When you get to the Kickstarter page, watch the short video of Paul explaining how this transformative experience will work for you.

P.S. Did I mention that the ALIVE Pro community will screen-record the entire process performed on your own work in HD-quality (about 90 mins) for you to watch over and over again. That means you’ll be unstuck from your rut, FOREVER. Treat yourself (and your family) to something special this holiday season. Click HERE

Fun With Agates

As winter approaches I start searching for subjects to shoot indoors.  I have a collection of slab agates that I’ve purchased over time from online sites that offer a variety of thin polished rock slabs with some interesting designs.  It’s always fun searching for unique patterns in these  beautiful rocks. I shot this with the 60mm Tamron macro lens.  Do a google search for “slab agates” and see what you find.

Check out both sides if you buy any slabs, as the patterns vary on each side.

Lots of fun with these rock slabs

Check out my website and also join my Macro Photo Club. http://www.tinylandscapes.com

Macro Boot Camp 2019

This is just the start of my Macro Boot Camp for 2019.  So far I’ll be in Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, Kentucky. Hope to add more states soon.

Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina Macro Boot Camp CLICK HERE

West Des Moines, Iowa Macro Boot Camp CLICK HERE

Bowling Green, Kentucky Macro Boot Camp CLICK HERE

Springfield, Missouri Macro Boot Camp CLICK HERE

Fun Photographing Oil And Water

I’ve seen many images posted in various websites of mixing oil and water and always thought they were really cool images. For what ever reason I never took the time to photograph oil and water. So I finally decided to take some time and give it a go. Here is how to do it with simple basic household items.

What’s needed

1) Clear glass pie dish or clear baking dish.
2) Cooking oil
3) Water
4) Multi colored photo, fabic, wallpaper, etc.
5) Two tall drinking cups
6) Butter Knife

I fill the clear glass pie dish with about an inch of water and add maybe a half cup or oil.  I used a stool to set up my system on, but a small table will also do.  The two tall drinking cups are placed underneath the pie dish at the outside edges to support the dish.  You can see below the pie dish I have a print of one of my fall multi colored leaves.  You can use fabrics or wall paper, that has lots of colors.  I set up inside next to a window for lots of light, but you could do this outside as well.

Set up your camera overhead, and get the front of lens parallel to the water.  I used an f/stop of f/8 and my shutter speed worked out at 640th of a second at an ISO of 1600.  I wanted a fast shooting shutter speed that would help stop moving bubbles.

You may pour the oil on the water and get lots of bubbles or in my case I only had grape seed oil on hand and when I poured it on the water it just created a slick on top of the water, but not a lot of bubbles.  I used a knife to swirl the water fairly hard to help create some more bubbles and create a swirl of lines and bubbles.

I would start swirling the water with the knife in a fairly quick whirlpool motion, and then pull out the knife and look through the cameras viewfinder and study as the swirling bubbles and lines passed through the frame.  The bubbles and lines will be going pretty quick at first, but just wait and the movement will slow down.

I’m looking through the viewfinder and as the water would slowly move through the frame,  I would see all kinds of interesting designs of bubbles and lines, and when I see something I liked,  I would fire the shutter with a remote. The fast shutter speed is needed to stop the action.

When the movement of the water stopped, I would start moving the water in a circle again with the knife.

You will get some nice groups of bubbles that will pass like the ones in the two images below.

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With the movement of the water you will get lots of compositions moving though the frame, and you will get interesting swirling lines like this next group of images.

Now you can just shoot whatever bubbles you may find just randomly floating on the water and move the camera and tripod around, but I like to be able to just set up the camera in one place and move the bubbles though the frame and having unlimited artistic composition to choose from.

If you choose to do it this way try and get the highest shutter speed you can to stop the movement of the bubbles.   Raising the ISO will help with the higher shutter speed. If your shooting in direct sunlight you will have plenty of light for a fast shutter speed and may not need a higher ISO.

This is a lot of fun, and you will have tons of interesting artistic artwork.

Check out my website and also join my Macro Photo Club. http://www.tinylandscapes.com

Diversify Your Macro Portfolio

I wrote an article that was published a few years ago in Outdoor Photographer magazine called “Diversify Your Macro Portfolio”. It talked about varying the different styles that are available in macro.

Macro abstracts are the most challenging and fun to shoot. When I’m in the field my eyes are always scanning for unusual subjects composed of lines, shapes, patterns, colors, and interesting designs. Some macro photographers shoot soft focus images and call them abstracts, but I want an abstract where the viewer has to put some thought into what they are looking at. I want to maximize my depth of field to bring it all in focus, so I set my f/stop in the highest ranges.

Read The OP Article Here

DEW ON MUSHROOM

POND ICE

BRISTLE CONE PINE TREE TRUNK

Read The OP Article Here

Check out my website and also join my Macro Photo Club. http://www.tinylandscapes.com

Lemon in Sparkling Water

This is a trick that I’ve seen before and thought I need to give it a try and see what happens.

I went to my local Meijer store and bought a bottle of sparkling water, and lemon and a glass.

I sliced the lemon to about a quarter inch think, and wedged it down into the glass and then poured in some sparkling water.  The sparkling water makes tons of bubbles when you pour it in the glass, and they stick to the lemon.  You will have to many bubbles when you first pour it in, but they will start to disappear if you wait awhile.  The front of the glass will also accumulate some bubble so I just took a knife and scraped them of the glass.

Set up my tripod and camera using my 90mm Tamron, and placed one of my printed backgrounds behind, and set the f/stop at f/22 and pressed the shutter.

I shot different versions and sections of the lemon, but this one was my fav.  The unique look of the water drops comes from processing with the Detail Extractor filter in Nik Software’s, Color Efex Pro 4.

You can try other fruits as well. I tried a strawberry but wasn’t happy with the results, but I’ll try again another day.

Check out my website and also join my Macro Photo Club. http://www.tinylandscapes.com