Is this watch jumping in or out of the water? Funny how our perception can trick us sometimes. Is this how visual artists manipulate with perceptions?
Well, this is how I did it. After my little experiment with splashing water the other night,...I decided to get bolder this time and had a little fish tank which I borrowed from my brother Roy.
I filled it up with water and setup the same lighting as the perfume bottle. But this time, I placed the fish tank on top of an old CD rack from Ikea, so that the height is high enough for me to stand comfortably. Then I tried threwing different objects into the tank to see how it works- listerine bottle, apple, plum, grapes, bottle caps. Then I finally used my Nike watch, since the bright yellow strap with the splashing water would stand out from the dark nicely.
I just kept dropping the watch while pressing the remote simultaneously. I must had shot about 50 photographs before I managed to get this one. 50? Not bad at all! Some would have shot a few hundreds before getting one right. Becoming systematic as an 'In-Between' is something which I learnt after countless of shoot and the tedious setting up of lighting equipment and camera. But the efficiency level just kicks in after I become more systematic.
This is how I work : First I had an ideal, then I experiment with the idea. Only after experimenting and feeling that it may just work, then will the lightings, camera and everything else be setup. Before this, I just jumped from step 1 to step 3, without thinking there could be a small possibility that my briliant idea might not work. And that was just plain stupid. It is no small feat to set up the studio equipment all by yourself and then shooting it. So since I'm my own assistant as well as the photographer, I need to be clever in doing things. In case you are trying out studio photography, take this advice seriously!
Back to the watch, I rotated the photo 180 degrees in Photoshop, and this is how it looks after that. I also colour corrected it and enhanced the dynamic range by adjusting the curve and sharpening it. The image is definitely cropped, as the 35mm format of a DSLR simply sucks in product shoot. Unfortunately, the focal plane shutter also couldn't freeze the watch completely and there are some blur, if you examine it carefully.
2 comments:
Sorry for my utter ignorance but, is the watch really going INTO the water? Then where does all the splashing come from if the watch hasn't touched the water yet?
Hahaha, ok, I understand now, you actually said you turned the picture 180ยบ. The trick seems good to me, though.
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