Something I’ve been meaning to shoot for a while is a water slash. The trick is all in the setup and if you get it right, it is extremely easy to do.
First things first, you will need a regular spash of water. This is easy enough to create – a black tray of water and a plastic bag suspented from above. By cutting the corner off the bag, the water will run out and fall into the tray making a spash as it goes. I’d recommend setting this up on plastic sheeting or something as it is likely to get a little wet with all the splashes.
To freeze the splashes you will need to use a flash, but as the water will be transparent or as my chemistry teacher used to say ad nauseum, clear and colourless, meaning you can’t light it. Instead, place some white paper behind the tray of water and point the flash at it instead of the water. When the flash fires, it will light the paper and be reflected in the surface of the water drops. You’ll probably need to shield the extraneous light with subtractive panels and maybe even use a gobo or two.
Next step is to set the camera up on a tripod and focus on the surface of the water in the tray and you’re ready to go.
Make a small hole in the corner of the bag for the water to drip through, big enough that you have a reasonable flow rate and small enough that it falls in drops into the tray. Then start shooting. You may need to take a lot of shots before you find something that you can use.
