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Showing posts with label Abstract. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abstract. Show all posts
20 Nov 2013
Abstract Photography with Paper

My nieces were folding origami over the weekend, and the idea of doing some abstract photography with the colorful papers struck me. Here's how I created some of these abstract pieces ...

Materials that is needed

  • Papers - A stack of colorful papers, preferably 100-120 grams types, is needed. Avoid getting papers that are too thin as it is more difficult to sustain the form and shapes when trying to mould them. If the papers are too thick, moulding them would be difficult as well.
  • Stapler or Metal Clips - These are needed to hold the various shapes of paper that I'm moulding into. If you do not want to leave stapler holes on the paper, metal clips can be used but make sure that they are strong enough to hold the paper in the shape.
  • Transparent Scotch Tape - Standby some scotch tape which will be handy in helping to hold the paper into the shape that will be moulded into.
  • Weights - Various sizes of blocks of relatively heavy weights would be helpful in holding shapes that the paper will be moulded into. I'd quite a dozen of chicken essence pack which I wrap them up with white A4 size papers and turn them into handy block of weights.

Equipment and Settings

  • Digital camera & lenses
  • Flashes (or light sources) - Besides from the digital camera, 1-2 off-camera flashes is preferred to create different lighting effects. If you do not have off-camera flashes, couple of white fluorescent lamps (preferably 100 watts or higher) should provide sufficient lighting power.
  • Remote trigger (if necessary) - May be required when you cannot be at your camera, if one of your hand is needed to hold onto the papers.
  • Tripod (if necessary) - Required for the same reason on using remote trigger. In addition, it would be better to use a tripod to avoid shakes if you are using a slow shutter speed due to insufficient lighting.

Camera Settings

There is no one fixed setting as it depends on the shape of paper being mould into and the angle that they will be photographed. Experiment with various settings on the camera and different angles of shooting them for creativity.

You may want to play with different settings of the the flashes or light sources as well, as placing them at different positions creates different lighting effect and ambience.

Shaping the Papers

This is the part which requires a little bit creativity, and this is also the part where moulding them into the shape will take up most of the efforts and time. Here are a few examples I created:

Spreading the Papers like a "Palm Tree"

First, I use a metal clip to hold a stack of colored papers on one edge of the paper. Next, I placed 2 weights (i.e. my chicken essence weights) about 10 cm apart and hold the papers in a vertical position in between the weights (i.e. with the edge held with metal clip on the table). This will allow the colored papers to start spreading (or falling) to the left and right where the weights are.

Make use of the weights to hold the edge of the paper into the shape just like the diagram below. Use scotch tape to tape the paper to the weights if necessary.

You may want to use odd number of colored papers so that you can have even number of "leafs" on both side and one standing in the middle.

You can try arranging the papers in different color tones (e.g. from light to dark tones) for different visual effects, taking it from different angles.

"S" Shape

Simply bend the paper into an "S" shape and use the weights on both sides to hold the shape (see picture below). Holding the paper in "S" shape is a lot more difficult as the papers will tend to "spring out" from the shape, so you may want to use some scotch tape to help holding them in the shape.

Roll A Bunch of Papers

This one is fairly simple as all you need to do is to roll a bunch of paper, strap them together with a rubber band and hold them in between the weights or leave it on the desk. The picture below would give you an idea.

You can try taking pictures of the folds when the papers are rolled together ...


Please visit http://jefzlim.smugmug.com/Studio-Works/Stationery for more photos ...


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8 Nov 2013
Creating An Urban Montage

I was reading one of my photography magazine and came across an article about creating an urban montage. The technique was easy and so I gave it a try. To my surprise, I really like the outcome as it look like an art piece.
Picture taken at Universal Studio Singapore. Click on it to see the higher resolution full size picture.

Steps to Create the Montage

1. Choose a picture - I had gone through and tried on various types of photographs, and find that the montage looks great with vibrant pictures of landscape or cityscape that have quite a fair bit of details. (That's my opinion - feel free to try out whatever seems good to you :)

2. Use Photoshop to duplicate 12 additional copies (layers) of the picture, with each layer rotated incrementally at 30-degrees. In other words, you will have 6 of layers rotated at 30, 60, 90, 120, 150 and 180 in clockwise direction, and the other 6 layers rotated in similar angles in anti-clockwise direction.
(Note: Any angle of rotation can be use, and it doesn't need to have 12 additional copies. In my case, I followed the magazine because 12 copies of 30-degree rotation each will complete a 360-degree rotation.)

 3. Set the blending mode for each of the 12 layers to "Soft Light". Lower the opacity of each layer if the montage looks a little too overwhelming after the blending.

4. Shift and move each layer around to create the montage. There is no science to this - it is all dependent on you playing around and shifting each layers to give the desired montage "look" of your picture.


That's all! Simple technique that can create really beautiful artistic looking pictures. Try it out :)


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29 Oct 2013
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Today I spend the entire rainy afternoon in my little studio playing with smoke. I had my room filled with smell of smoke but it was great fun.
(Picture Above: Do you see a man with arms stretching out to both sides?)

Smoke photography is one of those really fun subject because every photographs produces different pictures. Depending on the shape and form of the smoke (and of course your creativity), it can be superimposed onto another object to give it a creative appeal e.g. smoke from a kettle or tea cup.

Here are some tips on how to take pictures of smoke …

Logistics/Equipment Required

Dark Room with Still Air

To effectively capture the smoke, the room needs to be dark enough and without any moving air (i.e. turn off the fan or air-condition). I find results more pleasing if the room is completely dark i.e. can barely see own hand. If you are working in a very dark room, make sure you have a touch light or can easily access to the light switch just in case anything is toppled over.

Black Background

Either a piece of black cloth or black paper/cardboard that is enough the cover the frame of picture is required as the background so that the smoke taken can "stand out".

Remote Trigger

If you are doing this alone, you will definitely need a remote trigger as you will be fanning the smoke or creating "patterns" of the smoke which I will explain later.

Off-Camera Flash

In my case, I've used my Canon 580 EX II as the off-camera flash controlled from my camera via ST-E2 transmitter. The off-camera flash is placed at 45-degree position on either the left or right, facing towards the camera. Placing at this position will help to illuminate the smoke with a completely black background. Do a couple of test shot to ensure that:
  • The flash does not illuminate the black background. If it does, move it further away from the background (or move your background further back). Alternatively, put a black cardboard between the flash and the background to block the light.
  • The smoke can be illuminated from the firing flash.
  • The firing flash does not point into the camera i.e. the flash fired should be outside the camera's angle of view.

Tripod (Self-Explanatory)

Self-explantory especially shooting in the dark and alone.

Smoke Source

A burning incense is ideal because it is safe and produces a steady flow and nice form of smoke. Furthermore, it can be stick onto a sponge or styrofoam without the need to hold onto it.

If you don't have incense stick, you can try make a "smoke stick" with kitchen paper towel. To make a smoke stick. twist a piece of kitchen paper towel into a stick (see picture below). You have to make sure that it is tightly twisted, otherwise it will just catch fire easily. To produce smoke, fan off the fire once the stick is already burning. Please be careful not to burn down your house if you are using kitchen paper towel as it is more flammable and harder to control. Do note that the kitchen paper towel stick can be quite smokey :)
(Picture Above: Kitchen paper towel stick on top left.)

Camera Settings

Pre-Focusing Required

Before switching off the lights, you will need to pre-focus on the spot where the smoke will be rising into the air. You can do so by auto-focusing on the tips of the incense stick, once that is done, switch to manual focus.

ISO 100, Small Aperture (F/13 or Higher), 1/200s Shutter Speed

This is the typical settings that I start off with. If you are not getting the right exposure, you can try a wider aperture but not recommended to be wider than F/8.

Flash Power Output

The flash power should be adjusted accordingly to a suitable level that will illuminate the smoke sufficiently. You should play around with the flash power output alongside the aperture used. In my case, I've used between flash power of 1/4 to 1/8.

Take Picture in RAW

Taking the smoke pictures in RAW allows you better control during post-processing which is definitely required for any smoke photography.

Creating Interesting Smoke Form

If you leave the incense stick burning without doing anything, you will only get a straight stream of smoke. So to give a little bit of excitement to get more interesting smoke form, you can try to:
  • Gently fan or blow the smoke
  • Use a container (e.g. a plate, a cup) to temporarily catch/hold the smoke as it raises and releasing them (by moving the container gentle away) after a while.
You can also add color gels to your flash to produce other interesting colors of the smoke.
(Picture Above: Do you see a face flying to the left?)

Post-Processing

The key adjustments using your preferred image editing tools should be on the contrast, exposure, hue, saturation, temperature and tint of the smoke picture taken. Contrast and exposure take care of the intensity and tone of the picture. Hue, saturation, temperature and tint can control the colors on the smoke.

If you want your smoke picture to appear on a white background instead, just invert the picture colors. You should do this before you start applying any adjustments as the look and feel can be very different on a white versus a black background.

Where required, you should clean away any unsightly/unwanted smoke in the background for a better picture composition.
(Picture Above: What do you see now?)

Have Fun Trying Out Your Own Smoke Photography!


Please visit http://jefzlim.smugmug.com/Studio-Works/Smoke for more photos …



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12 Oct 2013
Watch How Water Droplet Splashes

  • at 11:30 pm
  • 0 comments
Google and you will find many remarkable and impressive photos of water droplet. There are many articles on the Internet that show how to photograph water droplets from the most extensive to the simplest setup. So I decided to give it a try as well ...
The entire shooting was not as simple and easy as I had thought it to be. I had to tweak my setup couple of times as there are various challenges and parameters to getting the "right splash" that I wanted. I will share some of these key challenges.

Challenge #1: Consistent Drop in the Same Spot

It is important to get the droplet to always drop into the same spot in the water as this is the point of focus for a sharp picture. In order to do, I secured a plastic dropper (note: bought from Art Friend - bunch of 10 at around S$3) using masking tape to a crossbar tripod.

Once the dropper is secured, I lower the crossbar tripod until the dropper touches the water surface. Then, I set my lens to automatically focus on the point where the dropper touches the water surface (i.e. assuming also the point where the water droplet will enter the water), and switch back to manual focus when done.

The challenge comes during the actual shooting, as water droplet does not seem to be always dropping into the same location. As the air around me is still, I could only explained the inconsistency due to the squeezing action of the dropper that cause slight movement.

To account for such inconsistency, I find that setting a small aperture (F20 and above) would produce a better picture with reasonable sharp details.

Challenge #2: Timing Between Drops and Triggering Shots

Shots should not be trigger immediately when the water droplet leaves the dropper, as it will need time to travel and hit the water surface. A short pause is needed in order to capture the splash.

There are many stages of the splashes as seen in some of the pictures below and practice is needed to get the right timing.

Challenge #3: Composition - Angle of Water Droplet Splash

How do you want the composition of the water droplet splash to be captured? Do you want the water ripples to be the "background" of your picture? Do you want to capture it from an angle that is more parallel to the ground (e.g. see 1st image above) OR from a more elevated angle (e.g. see image below).

If you want the water ripples to be the "background" of your picture, then to some extent, the angle of the desired composition does determine the size of your tray/container used. When taking from an angle that is more parallel to the ground, the edge of the container/tray may show up on the far end of the taken picture. See illustration below.

This following picture shows a shot taken at about 15-20 degree angle from the water surface using the water ripples as background. I had to use a larger rectangle container/tray to ensure that the edge of the container/tray does not show up in the shot taken.

This following picture shows a shot taken at about 45 degree angle from the water surface using the water ripples as background. While a small container/tray is required, it does not really bring out the splash effect.

This following picture shows a shot taken at about 10-15 degree angle from the water surface with a black backdrop using a small container/tray. At this angle, it can clearly capture the splash effect.

Challenge #4: Height of Drop and Water Determines the Splash

Both the height of the water in the container/tray and the height from which the water droplet is dropped will determine how "spectacular" the splash will be.

Height of Water Level in Container
In my experiment, I had filled water containers with various height from 2cm to about 10cm. Based on my observation, I noticed that if the water container is fill with a higher water level, the stages of the splash are simpler i.e. may not get pictures such as a ball of droplet splitting away from the stem of water that sprout out from the splash.

Height that Water Droplet is Dropped From
I'd also experimented with water droplet dropping from a height of 30cm to 100cm above the water surface. I observed that the higher the water droplet is dropped from the more "spectacular" the splash will be.

Note: I felt that the size of the water droplet does matter as well, but I did not have a chance to play with it as I only have dropper of a single size.


Setup and Equipment

The following are basic equipment that I'd used for the water droplet photography:
  • EOS 5DM2 + EF100mm F2.8L Macro IS USM (note: both on a tripod)
  • Off-camera Flash/Strobe + Color gel
  • Transmitter and/or Receiver (i.e. for triggering the strobe or off-camera flash)
  • White/black cardboard (note: for background and serve as reflector)
  • Dropper + Crossbar Tripod (i.e. for holding the dropper)
  • Water container/tray of various sizes
  • Water and/or milk (note: you can either try the water droplet splash using water or milk)
There are various setup that I used, most of which only make use of a single off-camera flash. I don't think there is a right or wrong way to position the flashes/strobes. Depending on the equipment that you own, you can try out different settings to achieve different creative lighting effects.

What are the other fun that you can try out?

  • I'd came across articles on the Internet that uses food coloring on milk and it produces very impressive result.
  • Try capturing the collision of multiple water droplets. I'd tried many times but was unable to achieve it.
  • Also try water droplet splashes on objects such as a spoon.


Please visit http://jefzlim.smugmug.com/Studio-Works/Water-Droplets/ for more photos ...


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11 Oct 2013
Interesting Results with Oil on Water

  • at 11:14 pm
  • 0 comments
Inspired by my earlier post on Fruit Splashes Photography, I decided to experiment and play with more liquid-based related photography, and share it in everyone over the next few posts. I started off with the photography of oil on water as it would be the easiest in terms of setup and less messy to fiddle with.

The Setup and Equipment

My setup was very simple using just a single off-camera flash as illustrated below:

Before Shooting

Before shooting, the lens will need to be pre-focus on the surface of the water. As it is difficult to focus on the water surface, I did the following:
  • Place a piece of color paper on the surface of the water in the fish tank.
  • Set the lens on auto-focus mode and focus on the piece of color paper on the water surface.
  • Once the focus is made, take out the piece of color paper on the water and switch the lens to manual focus.

Check and Adjust Exposure and Flash Power

Once the pre-focus is done, you are ready to start pouring fair amount of oil into the water and start shooting. You should take a shot to see how the exposure turn out to be. Adjust your camera settings and flash power accordingly based on your setup.

Interesting Outcome and Pictures

The outcome of each shot is very different with the oil on water. Try stirring the water or pour in more oil to create interesting pictures. Also try out the following:

#1: Different colored gels placed over the flash to produce different colored effects.

#2: Placing colored papers or objects on the floor directly below the fish tank for other effects.

#3: Use a dropper to carefully drop some colored water into the middle of oil blobs - they will float in the middle of the oil blobs :)

Try it out - it is fun, simple to setup and yet produce surprising results.


Visit http://jefzlim.smugmug.com/Studio-Works/Oil-on-Water for more photos ...


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28 Sept 2013
Fun with Refraction

Refraction of lines/shapes using water can produce interesting results.

I've came across this interesting article from a photography magazine that is simple to setup and try from your own home. The following are items that you would require:

1 x White Cardboard & 1 x Black Cardboard

White cardboard to be used for the backdrop, while the black cardboard for the table-top surface.

A4 Size Printout of Diagonal Stripes

This can be easily created and printed using Photoshop.
(Tips: You may just google "Photoshop Stripes" on instructions to create stripes using Photoshop.)

Tall Clear Glasses (4-5 of them)

This is essential to hold water in order to create the refraction effect. I must emphasize to get glasses that are tall as it would bring out the refraction effect better. (Note: You can easily buy them from Daiso.)

Strobes/Flashes

Ideally 2 could create better lighting for your work. However if you only have a single on-camera flash, it could also work although results may not be as ideal.


The Setup

The items are then setup according to the top-view perspective illustration below:
In this piece of work, I've used my Canon EOS 5DM2 with EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM. The settings I've used are ISO 100, F/16 and 1/200s. Depending on your flash power and distance from the subject, you may need to play with your aperture and shutter speed.

Tips: I would recommend an aperture setting of at least F/11 for a deeper depth-of-field (i.e. the entire scene remains sharp throughout).

Note: If you only have a single flash attached onto your camera, it is advisable to point the flash to the ceiling and use bounced light so as to eliminate possible shadows that could fall behind the glasses.

Positioning Your Glasses & Water Levels

As you are positioning your glasses, fill them up with different levels of water and watch how the lines/shapes are refracted through the glasses. Adjust your water level and glasses' position as you go along.

Personally, I would recommend that part of the glasses are overlapped when positioning them as illustrated below, as interesting patterns will show when lines/shapes are refracted more than once.

Note: Try to clean up with water droplets that may form on the outside or inside the glasses with a piece of cloth/tissue before you start shooting.

Shoot, Adjust, Crop and Touch-Up

Once you have setup everything, go ahead and start shooting. It may take you a couple of adjustments and shots to get the ideal one that you like. The following is a sample of raw image from my shooting.

From the raw image, I cropped the photo minus the borders around the stripes. I further enhance the contrast and curves of the photo using my Aperture 3 photo management tool.


Please visit http://jefzlim.smugmug.com/Studio-Works to see my other studio works.


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