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Photo of The Day - May 2023
- Thread starter mollyc
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Glasgow. A place where you can lose yourself in time and architecture!
Why the third rail?, did they have a smaller gauge system too? Certainly can't be for electrical power exposed like that.
Thank you! Well...... At the moment it's an experiment in process..... I recently heard about using a sheet of plain glass, spraying or wiping it with Rain-X (a product normally used on car windows to repel rain), as when water is dripped on it, nice "raindrops" form. There are different approaches to this, such as choosing an actual subject and photographing it under the Rain-Xed sheet of glass, or using an iPhone or iPad and shooting an image on it with the sheet of glass elevated above it and shooting through the water drop(s). The idea is to capture an interesting and colorful reflection of the subject in the water drop(s).Wonderful shot - can you explain more about how you set this up please?
Cheers
Hugh
I've done shots in the past using my computer monitor as a background and I've also shot images using my 12.9 iPad as the background, reflecting colors upward into a lightweight crystal object, and I've also done the thing where one mixes oil and water and suspends the container of that over a colorful background or used food coloring and mixed it in with the oil and water. This is a different variation on those approaches, and once again something fun to try on a rainy or dreary day!
The first time I attempted this latest project was in the dark in the bathroom shooting an image that was on my iPad.... I hadn't yet purchased Rain-X so thought I'd try glycerine, which I did have on hand (having used it in other projects). The only decent result that I got was one I shared here I think a week or so ago, and that wasn't even involving the water drops, that image was the colors from the iPad reflected in the sides of the tall, narrow kitchen glasses I was using to support the sheet of glass. Kind of looked like slivers.... Needless to say, messing with all that glass in the limited space of the bathroom (this was during the daytime and I needed darkness) made me a bit nervous! Thankfully the glass and I all got out of the bathroom intact. No actual slivers of glass to clean up.... Whew!
After buying the Rain-X (the glycerine wasn't quite doing what I was hoping to achieve with it), yesterday afternoon I finally got around to trying again, and this time shot in the living room near my sliding glass door with natural light coming in, and chose an actual flower, a yellow Gerbera Daisy, to use as the subject / background. Rather than supporting the sheet of glass with kitchen glasses, this time I used a waste can, put the flower (in a tall narrow vase) in it, then put the sheet of glass over the top of the waste can. That worked, more or less..... However, next time I'll try yet another strategy for the supports, especially if I go with using the iPhone or iPad and shooting in the dark again.
This is the kind of thing I love to do: experiment with something interesting, getting the creative juices stirring, and then seeing what happens and what the results are. Some experiments work out better than others, of course! Thank goodness for the magic of digital photography, where one can shoot to one's heart's content without worrying about wasting resources. Playing with light in all its different aspects is endlessly fascinating.
There are YT videos and some websites which describe the techniques and processes of shooting water drops and-Rain-X on a sheet of glass, but in the end I find that these offer a starting point and trying different approaches often works best for me. Maybe eventually I'll actually nail down the process well enough to get more interesting results plus also be able to better offer how to achieve them.
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That’s a cool rainy day project. Pretty sure I have an equivalent product in my car detailing kit.
Harbor in Dubrovnik, Croatia through a stone wall, September 2012.
Nikon D40X - 48 mm, f/8, iso 200, 1/80s
I looked it up and it is definitely a 750 v DC power rail. I know our subways in NYC use a third rail, but it is hard for people to access the rails. Seems awfully dangerous to me. Electric trains in the US use overhead wires with special contact systems. In fact, the tracks that were directly my house in NJ were for diesel engines until recently converted to overhead electric trains for passengers only.
New trains and overhead power close to my former home in NJ.
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Yes, I imagine there are several brands which all do the same thing, and it is possible that Rain-X isn't available in the UK but some very similar product is. Anything which promotes repelling water and in which the surface beads up into little drops or the water simply washes off in sheets as it is raining/pouring would do the same thing.
Art festival day. While sitting in a booth inside a pizza place, saw this lovely animated woman with the hat through a window sitting in the patio. Left my pizza behind and went out for a photo. Negative Film, Ricoh GR iiix.
Nice photo but I draw the line at leaving my pizza behind. Never!Art festival day. While sitting in a booth inside a pizza place, saw this lovely animated woman with the hat through a window sitting in the patio. Left my pizza behind and went out for a photo. Negative Film, Ricoh GR iiix.
The pizza was in good hands. If it is the pizza or the photo - for me, the photo wins.
Sometimes I will be out in my kitchen, look out and see Alfred or some other bird(s) doing something interesting, then promptly stop whatever I've been doing and run to grab the camera and hustle out to the deck to get a photo or two.... The coffee or meal prep can wait, gotta get that photo!
Food can be replaced. The photo opportunity not so much.
Medieval Ragusa! I almost went there, I was up the Dalmatian coast in Split.
