Abstract Colour

This weeks photo challenge was 'Abstract Colour', and was yet another challenge that was more a task than a theme. The challenge read as follows;

Hi everyone!  It’s my turn to set a challenge again. 

Like last time, this isn’t a “theme” based challenge, but is an exercise that you can do in the comfort of your own home which should allow you to come up with some nice abstract images. 

You will need:

• A camera (obviously!)  If you’ve got a macro lens, or have a macro setting on your camera (it usually looks like a tulip) then that may be useful as well.

• A glass of water

• Some food colouring

• A piece of foil, silver mylar, or silver reflective wrapping paper

• Some small weights (stones from the garden will do)

Lay the foil out on a flat surface with the shiniest side up.  The wrinkle the foil a little so that it’s no longer a perfectly flat surface, but instead has some peaks/troughs/ridges or creases in it.  If you need to, hold the foil in place with the weights. 

Now place the glass of water on or near the foil and add the food colouring. 

The idea is to take a photo of the abstract colours and shapes which form on the foil when you look down on it from above.  Don’t take a photo of the glass of water, but instead try to fill the frame with the foil. 

You may have to search around the foil a bit, move the glass of water or add a second glass to try and find an interesting composition. 

If you’ve got a macro setting, you can use it to get in close and stay in focus.  If you don’t have a macro setting, you might want to shoot from further away, but crop the image afterwards.  Or perhaps turn your auto focus off and get in close anyway, you might get an interesting result! 

If you have a lightsource (eg a torch, a desklamp or a window) try rearranging the setup so that the light goes through the glass and onto the foil from different angles.  Add more glasses of water with different colours, try different shaped glasses, or try adding a few drops of water to the foil itself 

Give it a go and post the results!  The Usual Rules apply (as do the new submission guidelines) lets see what we can come up with. 

-Paul 

This challenge was inspired by this post on Ultimate Photo Tips, which has loads of other interesting ideas…

As I don't normally post about how I actually get my photos, I thought this week I would! Although it sounds complicated, well, it did to me the first time I read it, it's actually quite simple. I set up as follows;

I didn't have a constant light source, so used a sheet of A3 paper as a bounce card for my SB-700 speedlight. I played around with the distances, and altered the positions of the glasses, and decided that I'd enter the following photo tomorrow for the challenge...