Oil and Water Photography | What You Need Explained [part 4]

Today's post is the last from the set of posts where I've been explaining the equipment you need for oil and water photography as part of my series on it. If you've missed any you can start from here where you'll find a list of all the things I've been talking about which then follows onto these posts where I explain why you need it. 

11. Colourful Fabrics

These are used to create the colour throughout your scene, you can use anything you want for this, it doesnt have to be fabric, you can use anything, sweet wrappers, tissue paper, wrapping paper, literally anything with some nice colour to it, you can be as creative and imaginative as you want, bearing in mind that it needs to be able to fit underneath your glass container of course!

12. Macro Lens

As I mentioned briefly earlier, it's very useful to have a macro lens to do this type of photography as you want to be able to get as close as possible to the little oil bubbles as personally I think it makes for a more abstract shot. You could try with an ordinary lens but I'm not sure that this would work as well. Also, it's useful to have a macro lens with as small number aperture as possible (mine goes down to f/2.8), to enable you to blur the background enough, so that it doesn't detract attention from the bubbles. An aperture of f/5.6 is probably not going to be good enough as you probably won't be able to get a shallow enough depth of field to create a soft enough blur in the background. 

13. Clear Glass Container

This is another vital piece of equipment that you'll need as this is what you'll be putting you're oil and water solution into. It also needs to be glass (or extremely clear and see-through at least!) so that you can see straight through it to the colourful fabrics you'll be placing below. It's also ideal if there are no marks or branding on it as this could potentially shows up in the resulting image and ruin your shot. As I have a pyrex dish, I have to avoid the writing in the middle of the bowl and just photograph the bubble around the edge which can get a bit annoying so it's best if you use something plain to avoid this aggravation during your work.

And that's it, everything you need to know about all the equipment I use for oil and water photography. Stay tuned next week where I'll be talking about the next steps in the oil and water photography process. 

Thanks for reading, see you then! 

Oil and Water Photography | What You Need Explained [part 3]

Here I am, back again today with the next few items from the list of equipment I use to take stunning oil and water shots. (You can view the full list here)

8. Olive Oil

Of course you're going to need some sort of oil to create the water droplet type bubbles that will be the main focus of your images. I like to use olive oil but I guess you could try any sort of oil to see what results you get if you don't have any of this. I'm thinking of giving it a go with Argan oil to see if this produces any different effects, if anyone uses anything other than olive oil then I would love to see the results!

9. Water

Along with some oil you're definitely going to need some water as this is what you'll be putting the oil into within your glass container.

10. Washing-Up Liquid

This is helpful because adding a tiny drop of washing-up liquid helps to give the oil those really defined edges that result in the lovely golden rings that can be seen in my latest examples of this type of photography. This is a tip that I learnt from Sharon Johnstone's blog, check her out she does some amazing oil and water photographs, all her info can be found on her website here.

Once again, that's it for today, tomorrow will be the concluding post of equipment explained so be sure not to miss it!

Oil and Water Photography | Equipment Explained [part 2]

Following on from yesterday's post, today I will be explaining why you need a clear glass coffee table, a spirit level, a flashgun, and some tissues for your oil and water photography. You can check out yesterday's post here to see the previous few items listed that you'll be needing just in case you missed that!

4. Clear Glass Coffee table

This is needed to place your clear glass container onto and needs to be glass in particular so that you can see through it to the coloured items that will be placed underneath. However, as you can see, I don't have a clear glass coffee table so I went with the next best thing, a couple of storage containers that I use to balance the bowl on by placing one either side of the bowl and then balancing it very carefully by the edges of the bowl, making sure i've got enough room underneath to place the colourful items underneath. It needs to be a fair distance from the colours you'll be placing underneath though so that they'll blur nicely creating the coloured background that you want. 

5. Spirit Level

This is an extremely useful piece of equipment to have to hand because it's vital that everything is in line/parallel with each other to maximise the depth of field and keep the focus even throughout the whole scene. It will also help you to keep your f stop as low as possible because if the lens is closer to one area than the other as that area may not blur enough and then you will need to increase your f stop which you may not be able to do in certain lighting condition so it's just easier to use one as low as you possibly can. 

6.Flashgun

It's also incredibly useful to have a flashgun, or some other form of external lighting, as you need an awful lot of light as you're going to be using fast shutter speeds so that you can remove any slight movement within the scene created by any motion within the water to keep all areas crisp within the frame and the colours as vibrant as possible.

7.Tissues

This isn't an essential item that you'll be needing it's just quite useful to have on stand-by incase you need to mop up any accidental spillages you may create. 

And that's it for today! Stay tuned tomorrow as I'll be discussing the next few items from the list :)

Thanks for reading!

Oil and Water Photography | Equipment Explained [part 1]

As promised, today's post marks the start of the four-part set explaining why you'll be needing each piece of equiment for the process of taking your oil and water photographs. Today I'll be talking about items 1-3 listed in the shot below, explaining why you'll be needing a tripod, a camera, and some cocktail sticks.

1.Tripod

You definitely NEED a tripod to work within this area of photography, and it's best if it's an incredibly sturdy one that's able to hold your camera perfectly still. You don't want it moving around at all, even if only slightly, as any movement will render the resulting photograph useless, everything needs to be kept perfectly still.

You'll also need to be able to attach the camera so that it's pointing with the lens aimed down towards the ground. The tripod which I use has a 90° central column which can be extended and positioned horizontally so that you can point the camera directly towards the floor without the tripod legs being in shot. (If you can't keep the tripod legs out of shot completely this isn't too much of an issue though as you can crop the image in post-production to remove them from the scene.)

2.Camera

Obviously, you're going to need a camera! It's ideal if it's a DSLR camera but you may be able to get away with using a digital compact camera instead, as long as it's got a macro shooting mode, but I have never tried this method though so i'm not entirely sure if it will work? If anyone does give this a go then please let me know how you get on in the comments below as I'd love to hear about your results!

It's also ideal if you can put your camera into manual mode so that you have more control over the settings as getting the right aperture, shutter speed, etc, is crucial to getting the perfect shot.

3. Cocktail Sticks

It's also very handy to have a couple of cocktail sticks nearby because if you're a fussy perfectionist like I am then you'll want the bubbles to be in just the right place within the shot so they're useful for giving the bubbles a little nudge into the position where you want them to make sure your shot is perfect.

*top secret tip alert* The cocktail stick is also incredibly useful to help you focus your shot. Sometimes it's tricky to get the focus right as it's hard to see the bubbles through the viewfinder so I like to drop the cocktail stick into the water then focus on that instead as it floats just on top of the surface like the bubbles do and so it enables you to get a more accurate focus. The focus ring may need tweaking slightly once you begin shooting the actual oil droplets but it definitely helps to get the camera focused within the right area nonetheless.

I hope that has helped those of you reading this to understand why these items are required to ease the process of shooting oil and water shots. 

Stay tuned to learn about why you need to use a clear glass coffee table, a spirit level, a flashgun and some tissues!

See you then, thanks for reading...

Oil and Water Photography | What You'll Need and Why

Hello Everyone!

This post focuses on all the equipment you'll need to make the process as easy as possible as the photo below shows everything you will need...

1. Tripod

2. Camera

3. Cocktail Sticks

4. Clear Glass Coffee table (or nearest alternative)

5. Spirit Level

6. Flashgun

7. Tissues

8. Olive Oil

9. Water

10. Washing-Up Liquid

11. Colourful Fabrics

12. Macro Lens

13. Clear Glass Container

Tomorrow I will began to explain in more detail what each piece of equipment within the diagramn above is for, and why you'll be needing it. This will be done over four seperate blog posts to help you understand why each individual component is needed which will be followed by a post explaining how to set everything up.

In the mean time you can start gathering the equipment shown above ready to begin!

See you tomorrow,

My Photography | Oil and Water

Today's blog post kick starts the long-awaited series I'm doing all about how to capture as many stunning oil and water photographs as possible. To get you in the mood for the upcoming series, I've decided to share with you another oil and water snap of mine in the meantime.

© Hannah Bennett 

This one is another of my favourites that I've taken recently for a number of reasons. I love the pure simplicity in the placement of the bubbles. I think it works well because the larger bubble lies perfectly within the rule of thirds sitting within the two thirds of the frame along the right hand-side. I feel as though the image would be fairly flat if it was just of a singular bubble though which is why I feel that the teeny tiny little bubble in the top right corner prevents this from being the case as it adds a little bit more interest into the photo without being too much of a distraction and cluttering the scene. 

I think that this simplicity works so well because it's a complete contrast to the busy combination of colours that's going on in the background. I love the variety of purple tones shining through along with the little pop of turquoise that can be seen also, I think these colours works perfectly together. I also love the way that the bubbles reflect the colours beneath them so that the colours within the bubble are a reverse of the background behind them resulting in a wide variety of colours criss-crossing over the whole scene which I love!

Thanks for reading!

My Photography | Oil and Water Photography

A while ago now I spent a lot of time mastering the fine art of oil and water photography and seeing as I eventually got the hang of it I'm going to be adding my best ones onto here so that I can share them with everyone as I am really quite pleased with the results. 

Because of this I have decided I'd like to start a new series where I'll be writing about everything you need to know about oil and water photography. This will include everything from how to set it all up, the best ways to make the solution, how I edit my images, the best equipment to use, and everything in between. So if you're interested in any of that stay tuned to find out all about it. 

But for those of you reading this who don't know much about this style of photography, I shall give you a quick summary of how it's done to ease you in. It quite simply requires shooting a clear glass container full of water that's had a small amount of oil put into it, from a birds eye view whilst the bowl is suspended above a colourful background. Sounds simple enough right? Getting it spot on though is a completely different story which I'm sure you'll realise if you ever try it yourself!

Today's post showcases one of my absolute favourites that I've taken recently.

I was really pleased with the outcome of this shot, I really like the composition combined with the intense purple colours. I'm also very pleased with how the oil has captured, as the edges of the oil bubbles are extremely vibrant and look a lot like gold rings. I'm also happy with the variation in size of the different bubbles, there's a nice mix of small and large bubbles which I feel really makes the composition. 

I did have to enhance the colours slightly in Photoshop though for this one which I don't usually have to as they didn't capture as vividly purple as I'd hoped, they came out with a bit of a dull grey tone unfortunately which luckily I was able to resolve with some clever Photoshop trickery. I've also got rid of a few excess air bubbles and stray bits of fluff that had crept into the solution just to tidy up the image slighty as it's virtually impossible to prevent these tiny pieces of fluff from getting into the solution and ruining the image.

I've definitely noticed a huge improvement since my last few attempts at oil and water photography, one of which can be seen here, which I think you'll agree with. This is something that I think is due in most part to a couple of pieces of equipment that I've added to my photographic kit. One being a flashgun, the other a new tripod. These two pieces of kit have definitely enhanced my oil and water photography as what I have been able to achieve with them is exactly what I wanted, I haven't had to compromise areas like I did beforehand. 

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this post and love this image as much as I do :)

See you on Monday for the start of my series on how to achieve shots like this!

I'm Back!

Okay, so it's been a year since I vowed to update my blog design and start blogging again and clearly, that didn't go very well at all. But seeing as I had so many posts written ready to go up on my "relaunch" I've decided that it would be a shame to let them go to waste therefore I'm just going to post them and see where it goes, I'm definitely not going to commit to any sort of schedule for this blog at the moment as everytime I try and do so it's always with the best intentions but I can never seem to see them through for some reason.

To kick start what will probably be a short return to blogging I'm going to begin by doing some posts about the oil and water photography that I've done in the past, focusing on all aspects that are required to achieve such shots. I will be posting step-by-step posts, breaking down everything I do to give you as much information as possible to hopefully make it easier for you to understand how to work successfully within such a complex area of photography. I really want everyone to know how to get as best results as they possibly can because I think it's a really beautiful form of photography!

I will be talking about the equipment you'll need, how to set this up, what lighting and camera settings you'll need whilst also giving away any helpful little nuggets of information that I've picked up along the way to help those of you wanting to give this type of photography a go.