Heinz Maier's Insanely Beautiful Water Droplets
For those of you who like to tinker around with the art of water droplet photography, the bar has just been raised. Significantly.
Using the hydraulic setup you see above, German photographer Heinz Maier captures the tiny slices of time in which multiple drops of falling water interact with each other.
The lighting tools, which are not shown here, are very simple: a small DIY cardboard softbox with two flashes (cutting the already fast t.1 times in half) some sample gels (complete with spindle holes, no less) and a lot of creative thinking.
The results look like complex glass sculptures…
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Maier displays his work on Flickr, including a breathtaking set of droplet photos and photos of his gear setups.
I first learned of Maier's work through the always interesting Feature Shoot site, curated by Alison Zavos. It is daily fare on my RSS list. Highly recommended if you are not already a reader.
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Posted at 11:28 AM.
17 Comments:
Wow! - raised the bar indeed.
thanx for the newsletter.
chase
Wow! What a nice setup! First time I head about Stopshot, but for the price, if you are passionate about that kind of photos, it's not that bad!
btw - Markus Reugels does something similiar and may be where Heinz got some insperation if not the idea to try his hand at it.
A piece of gear he uses to achieve the shot has a coulple shots by Markus on their site in their "How to's" for high speed photography section. Water Drops is one of the how to's of course...
Here's Markus's Flicker page.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maianer/
I've seen those on the flickr feed and have wondered how he got them so still and frozen. I second the glass sculpture take on it... they are just amazingly beautiful.
I've seen is work on 500px and wondered how he was achieving such amazing shots. Thank you David!
Wow! Turns out he lives only about an hour away from me too.
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...erm, speechless, looks effortless, which it obviously isn't!
These are incredible. It just goes to show what a little hard work and thought can achieve.
Wow, those are beautiful. I just finished up a set of images that are kind of similar. They are macro photos of leaves as they are changing color for the autumn season.
http://shawnpix.photoshelter.com/gallery/Leaves/G0000jFTqs63sT.g/
My photos are not nearly as technical though. I simply used a lightstand and a small A clamp to hold the leaves with the flash bounced off my walls/ceiling.
Thanks for your continued diligence and referrals to other sites as well.
Lovely!
The glass reference is spot-on. The colored ones remind me of Dale Chihuly glass sculptures.
http://www.chihuly.com/
It takes a certain kind of personality to find a technical niche like this and explore it to it's fullest. I admire it.
I still don't know how it works, but the results are crazy good. Wow.
stunning! what a fantastic idea
That is perfect timing and composition. I love how the colors contrast each other.
Ok, my apologies for being late to the game on this one (I've been busy!) ... You MUST check out Martin Waugh's work, at LiquidSculpture.com ...he unfortunately doesn't give you setup shots, but this guy has been tinkering in his basement for 9 years (I think?) and I was lucky enough to catch him & discuss all matters of his setup over beers for a couple hours 2 months ago. Totally awesome, down-to-earth guy...he makes his living doing this!
He has a computer-controlled setup, and all kinds of tricks, but I'd have to let him decide what he was going to share on a more public level.
Cheers,
Jeff
beautiful !!!
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