Capturing the spray

Reading photography magazines, there’s loads of ideas around to practice different techniques or try particular effects. Having not taken any pictures for a week or so I was looking for something different to try and with the evening sunlight particularly strong tonight I headed out into the garden to look for inspiration.

Thinking about water as a subject matter, I picked up an ordinary hand-held garden spray and wondered if the camera could capture the water droplets as they are ejected at high speed.

With the camera on a tripod and the spray positioned on our little garden table, I spent a while trying to get the shot I was looking for, using a remote shutter release so that I could control the spray without behind the camera at the same time.

The best efforts were backlit by the sun but with the garden fence directly behind the water to act as a dark background. There were plenty of shots that were fractionally too early and some that were too late, but I quickly worked out the best timings and this was about the best result.

It won’t be a competition winner but it was good practice using the tripod and understanding the lighting conditions, and it meant I escaped from the usual round of soaps on the telly!