Drips

From Photo of the day (2009)

From Photo of the day (2009)

I had a bit of a crappy morning at work - half the cows were out in the field in the pitch black as they had got a barn door open and the wires weren't up, and then I ended up training nearly 40 moronic goats by myself, which took nearly an hour. I wasn't very up to taking shots at work so I had to dream something up at home. I decided to try some strobe photography.. or rather.. a bit of jerry-rigged strobe photgraphy. I don't have a real strobe. Or a decent dark room. Or three hands. But, I DO have a tripod, I recently bought a remote for my camera, a windowless but cramped bathroom, and an old flash that has a test button to make it flash whenever you want - once. So. These shots took me well over an hour of fiddling to get. I got the camera set up facing the mug, played with the remote to see how it worked, played with where I should use the flash from to get a half decent exposure, but the hardest part was getting some consistent drips. An assistant would have been great. After trying a shopping bag with a small hole in it I moved on to a more reliable coke bottle with some saran wrap over the top with a hole for the drips, and a big slash with the bread knife in one side to let the air in (otherwise I had 2 drips before it stopped). I needed something I could hold in the dark over the mug while switching hands from remote to flash. I found that the delayed shutter response gave me some time to get from remote to flash, and some light from the self timer. I left the shutter open 15 seconds to have enough time to put down remote, pick up flash, listen to make sure the drips were going in the cup and then use the flash, all in the pitch black (and blind after the flash had gone off). I got about 5 shots and these are the two that came out closest to what I was looking for.

Any suggestions for other strobe possibilities? Keep in mind my limited equipment and space!