Back in Australia I worked in IT during the week, and then operated a small-home Photographic studio on the weekends. I worked with a heap of dancers, actors, models, musicians and stunt guys. It was a really great creative outlet, and the simple joy people get from a really good photo of themselves was addictive.

95% of the time I would be working on the concepts the client requested... but over the years I made some friends who would also offer to come help out whenever I had a project I was working on.

This was one such project.

Clique Monthly Challenge - Water

A friend at work was interested in learning photography (her kids were heavily into sport and she wanted to know her way around a camera) and so she suggested we both enter this challenge so I could help her learn some skillz.

Water seems easy... but it actually teaches you a lot about shutter speeds.
If you use a really slow shutter speed (a low number where the aperture is open for a long time) then flowing water looks like silk... if you use a fast shutter speed (a big number, ie 1/2000, a 2000th of a second) then water freezes in the air.

The trick is that a really fast shutter speed needs a lot of light... while a really slow shutter speed wants the shot to be pretty dark... so there is a lot to balance in trying to get a good shot.

Freezing water the photographic way

I took my friend to an arty fountain in Melbourne and taught her about shutter speeds, and then we tried to get the water in interesting shapes. We didn't have any flashes which meant a lot of our photos came out dark. It was a cloudy day (which is usually good because you don't get harsh shadows, but didn't help us in this case).

I liked the above shot because the frozen water looks like a fish with it's mouth open. I probably have 50 shots where the water doesn't look like anything.

Later we tried spraying water onto flowers... but again, without flashes the shots all came out really dark.

I wasn't happy with the shots so far, and I really liked the concept of trying to freeze the water in mid air. I got some friends to help me. It meant they had to throw water at each other... I had too many volunteers.

This time I could use a studio light, which should have helped a lot. It didn't.
Studio lights often have a restriction where if the shutter speed is too quick (ie, above 1/250) they won't fire. The more expensive lights can handle this... but who wants to drop a couple of grand on studio lights?

So, I had to balance my friends and their crazy antics, the shutter speeds, the hot sun, the freezing water (haha, whoops) and the studio light.

Oh, and the squealing.

This area that we were shooting was a small courtyard that 9 other townhouses could look down into. It was a Sunday morning and we were making a racket, but it was a fun racket. I have no idea if the neighbours loved or hated me at that moment.

The above 3 photos didn't really give me what I wanted. The water pistols were fun, but not impactful enough in the shots... I couldn't translate what was in my head onto the image.

I tried again the next weekend, this time using colourful buckets instead of water pistols. It was a much more cloudy day, but I was running out of time.. without the sun though, it was really hard to get everyone in focus...

We tried to create shapes with the water, which the buckets weren't super good for. It also made it harder to frame the shot, I wanted it much, much tighter (ie, less distracting background) so I played around with some of my friends with water pistols and one with a bucket trying to make shapes.

So.
Much.
Squealing.

Final Image

In the end though, many girls with many buckets produced my favourite shot.

This photographic challenge was really great because they provided feedback which was amazing.
Here is the feedback on the above image, it looks like I was close, but I really do need to put more thought into the overall image and not get distracted by the technical aspects.

Results

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The Clique feedback is conducted in the following format.
The key elements are scored from 1 to 20.
1 -5: You really need to focus on that element of your photo
6-10 : You have done a sufficient job on that particular element of your photo
11-15: You have done a good job on that particular element of your photo
16 -20: Your have done a very good job on that particular element of your photo.
YOUR FEEDBACK

1.   Followed the brief :………………………...….             18/20
   

2.   Composition and framing:………………........            17/20
   

3.   Lighting and Exposure:……………………….             18/20
   

4.   The photo has a focus:……………………….             18/20
   

5.   The photo engages with the viewer:…......….            18/20
   

Comment:Nice job Adam. You probably wouldn't be popular but if you cropped out the girl at the hand on the right at the green bucket you get a much stronger image. Play with the crop to increase the action.