JPG Magazine: Stories: How To: Captured in a Sphere

How To

Captured in a Sphere

By Reese M.

22 January 2008

I've always been fascinated by how light can be bended and altered when it passes through certain objects. Water was one element that I took a particular interest in, and I decided to explore this fluid form that sustains life.

I went to the local flower shop and picked up two fresh Iris flowers. My other equipment included:

--Kodak Z712 Camera mounted on Manfrotto Ballhead tripod

--58 mm lens adapter

--58 mm macro lens

--58 mm ND filter

--spray bottle

--vase

I began by just shooting macros of the flowers without any dew on them to get a feel for the angles I wanted. After about 30 shots, I sprayed only one of the flowers with the spray bottle until I got a good amount of droplets.

Here's where luck came in: I had to find droplets that were hanging onto the bottom of the flower. I set up my tripod and focused on, initially, just one drop and zoomed in to near maximum (my camera has 12x optical). I used the ND filter to balance out the sunshine outside my window.

To get the shots I wanted, I took about 8 shots from each angle that I wanted. It was all trial and error and took me over 2 hours two get my shots.

Since I had no camera remote, every shot was taken on a 10 second timer and what I did was a bit strange, but it worked well. While I had my camera on the timer, I placed the other dry iris behind the water droplet (opposite of the camera). I placed the flower upside down because I discovered the droplets invert the image that it shows so to get a right side up flower, I had to place it upside down.

I rotated the dry flower around to get different shades in the background, which ranged from a nice, soft purple, to a dominant yellow. I experimented with different combinations until I found the one that I liked, which was to have a yellow strip down the center of the background with purple around it.

My shots were coming out fine, so I decided to challenge myself. Why settle for one drop? I sprayed the iris more, until i had enough droplets clinging to the bottom of the flower. Then, I went back to adjusting my camera's position until I found the reflection that I wanted. The results were stunning.

This whole process, like I mentioned earlier, took 2 hours, but it was worth every minute, as I took some of the best flower shots that I have ever attempted. If you want to try this out, here's some final pointers:

--be PATIENT. This takes time, and it's all trial and error. Be sure to take several of each shot and make sure everything you want is in focus because DOF is VERY important in these shots.

--be CREATIVE. Don't limit yourself to just trying to get a flower reflection in the dew. I tried to get a reflection of my friend's face and it was hilarious because her face was so warped!

--HAVE FUN!

I hope this story inspired you to take a closer look at one of nature's many beauties and look at it in a way you never did before.

Thanks for reading, and good luck!

Reese

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