Freezing Time Again

I was quite happy with the shutter speed experiments I had done but I still really, really wanted to try and nail raindrops and when we got another terrific downpour I tried again; this time with more success.

I did further research (Milk and other liquids) into two more photographers recommended in the OCA course book, Jeff Wall and the pioneering Harold Edgerton, I also found another high-speed photographer Markus Reugel, who’s colourful shapes created by fluids was quite inspiring (Buchanan, 2020). This research also showed me one of the reasons I was having quite such a hard time photographing rain – it’s not quite thick enough. I don’t have a fast flash but I had read online about the ISO-Shutter speed-Aperture triangle (Hall, 2019) and took this into account for this shoot which did make a difference to my images.  Learning from the previous attempts, I set my focus on the point at which I thought I was going to get the best drips.  I wanted the background to be blurry so that the eye was drawn to the raindrops.  I started taking photographs at various fast shutter speeds upping the ISO until I froze the rain.

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Photographic details clockwise from top left

In the end, my preferred photograph is the one used as the featured photograph at the head of this blog. This was cropped and I added a black and white filter.

Reference

Buchanan, K. (2020) ‘Milk and other liquids’, Katie’s Photographic Journey, 21 May. Available at: https://katie9.home.blog/research/milk-and-other-liquids/ (Accessed: 22 May 2021).

Hall, P. (2019) The Exposure Triangle: aperture, shutter speed and ISO explained, TechRadar. Available at: https://www.techradar.com/uk/how-to/the-exposure-triangle (Accessed: 17 May 2021).