How To Shoot Twisted Splashes Of Drinks

Shooting splashes is always a great fun for me, especially coffee or tea splashes. Even if it’s a simple image with a coffee cup and a falling piece of refined sugar.

But I tried to make it a bit more interesting and thought: maybe I can add some twist to it? So I did.

The result:

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1. What I used:

The most important thing was a solid background, I used a sheet of painted plywood. Also I needed a large syringe without needle, glue gun, reliable double sided tape and all components of my still life. Besides that, as for any splash shooting, I used a tripod and an external flash.

2. Set up:

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I arranged a still life composition, keeping in mind that it will be turned upside down. I knew that later there won’t be a chance to modify it, so I made sure that it was a composition I like. After that I glued everything steady to the background with a glue gun (for light objects I used the double sided tape). 

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I checked whether everything is held down firmly, and then turned the background upside down.

3. Have fun!

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For lighting, I used a typical speedlight on low power (1/8 up to 1/128 of the power provides a very short pulse that will freeze the motion of liquid) and set to RPT mode, which allows it to take a few shots in a row.

So I filled the syringe with milk (and with coffee for other shots) and started spraying. I got twisted splash by making circular motions the entire time. This was my favoutite part!

After shooting I chose the most beautiful splashes and combines them in Photoshop into one picture.

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Than I gave the image a little polish (adjusted the tone and contrast) and voila!

Empty cup

Spilled milk

I’m a coffeebender!

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