Diffuse

For this series of images I wanted to experiment further mixing ink and water together to create abstract forms for my photography project 'submerged'. This shoot resulted in some more unusual shots, some of which seem to resemble animals in a subtle way! This shot for example, begins to look like flamingos taking off into the sky, from the waters surface. I achieved this effect by dropping several tiny blobs of food coloring into the water in a line in quick succession!

Flamingos - f/13 | 1/500 sec | ISO 200

For this particular image I had dropped a large amount of the pale blue dye in followed by lots of darker blue in little drops, creating the explosive effect in the shot. It almost looks like an elephant splashing water - or maybe that's just my imagination!

Elephant - f/9 | 1/400 sec | ISO 400

This photograph is a simple capture of the food coloring moments after it fell into the water - before it had fully diffused. To create the thickness in these photographs I mixed food coloring with cream so that it took longer to diffuse into the water and made more unusual shapes and forms for me to capture.

Swirling Ink - f/13 | 1/400 sec | ISO 200

I like the composition of this shot with the dye collecting at the top and bottom of the image creating a frame around the unusual shapes towards the middle.

Of Red and Blue - f/10 | 1/640 sec | ISO 400

The images I captured during this shoot have a studio feel to them but they were actually shot outside on a bright sunny day! I placed a large square vase on a table with white paper underneath which reflected sunlight into the water allowing for a faster shutter speed (important when capturing the dye quickly)! I had a giant wooden board propped up behind with white paper blu-tacked onto it for the background. The only issue was making sure the shadow cast by the backdrop didn't land where the vase was - so I had to keep an eye on the suns position in the sky!