A Bit More Time to Sunset

In my post of 2^nd May (Time to Sunset), I was showing the movement of the sun before sunset. It was part my passing-of- time-in-one-picture idea. I had photographed the position of the sun every 10 minutes over 90 minutes before sunset and then combined the images to show the movement of the sun over that period. I really liked the resulting image and thought that I would have another go, but this time for a longer period.

I used the same position shooting through the bedroom window as before, looking out across to the horizon between some trees. I shot every 10 minutes for almost 3 hours, but some of the shots were with the sun behind the trees, so in the end I only used those pictures taken over a 2 hour period. I combined them to get the image below.

A rather nice effect shown in the picture is the rainbow fringes above the images of the sun. These were caused, I think, by the window glass and the fine dust particles on the glass. 

Although it was created in the same way as the previous picture, this one has quite a different feel. I like it, but I think I probably like the original best. What do you think?

A Drop in Time

My blog is called ‘The drip drop of a ticking clock’. Well we have had the ‘ticking clock’, so I thought it was about time to have the ‘drip drop’. I am still capturing time in one picture, but for this picture the time being captured is around 1/2,000 sec.

I have for years been amazed at the shots you can get with high speed photography, so I thought I should look into this for my blog.

The first photographs of real high speed action were taken by Harold Edgerton. His milk drop picture is really well known. The splash of the milk drop is so quick nobody realised how amazing it was until Edgerton’s picture froze the motion. Even more amazing was the bullet and the light bulb.

 

Originally Edgerton wasn’t even a photographer. He was an electrical engineer working at MIT in America. He invented the photographic strobe or electronic flash. He had been using a stroboscope for scientific research and turned it to point at everyday objects. This led to its development as a photographic tool. The thing that made it important for high speed photography was the speed of the flash. It was an amazing 1/1,000 sec at a time when camera shutter speeds were much slower. Eventually he got this down to 1/1,000,000 sec.

I certainly wanted to try out the idea, so I decided to look at water dropping onto a water surface. But Edgerton’s original picture has been done so often now, I thought I would do something different. The crown effect is achieved by dropping liquid onto a thin layer of the same liquid. I wanted to create a spout of fluid, so I decided to use a bowl of water.

The main problem with taking the Edgerton type picture is the high speed trigger. Today this is usually a laser or sound device. The speeding bullet or falling drop cuts across a laser beam which triggers the flash. Or if you are breaking a light bulb the noise of the shattering glass is picked up by a microphone which triggers the flash. But getting hold of a trigger circuit is difficult and you usually have to build your own. I didn’t have the time or skill to do this so went for something a lot simpler.

I set up a drip onto water in a glass bowl and back-lit the scene with a soft box with a 250 watt strobe. The strobe flash speed was about 1/2,000 sec. I then took pictures of the scene with a digital camera linked to the strobe. The great thing about digital is that you can take an awful lot of pictures at no cost and can see the results straight away. I couldn’t synchronise firing the strobe with the water drop hitting the water surface, but I felt that if I shot the scene enough times I would get something interesting. I also use the rapid shoot feature on the camera to increase my chances of success. Out of around 70 shots I got 4 really interesting pictures. They are shown below.

I love the glassy look to the water spout in picture 2 and the ripples on the water surface in picture 1. Picture 4 is the droplet crown you get with a bowl of water, rather than a thin layer of liquid. I was really pleased with the results. Hope you like them too.

Bibliography

http://www.artfact.com/artist/edgerton-harold-e.-mk03pl9sp

http://www.madehow.com/inventorbios/21/Harold-E-Edgerton.html

Sources of pictures

http://www.flikr.com/photos/989997814@N00/1109958694/

http://myggm.org/exhibit-seing-the-light/

Time to Sunset

I have got rather hooked by the passage-of-time-in-one-picture idea, so I thought that I would try another one.

There is a great view to the horizon from one of our bedroom windows. The view has large trees on either side and at this time of year the sun sets at a point on the horizon that can be seen from the window. I thought that it would be interesting to track the position of the sun from higher in the sky to sunset. I would take shots every 10 mins and combine them to create a picture with a series of bright patches fading to deep red as the sun approached the horizon.

The only problem about the pictures was that I would have to shoot them through double-glazing as the window cannot be opened. I had to be very careful not to create reflections on the glass and avoid a double-image cause by internal reflections between the two panes of glass. But I thought the potential image was worth the hassle. In all, I took 8 pictures every 10 mins before sunset. I had a timer to tell me when the next shot was due. Unfortunately, the timer didn’t ring for one shot, so there was a gap in the sequence.

I merged all the shots in Photoshop to get a combined picture, but felt that the images of the sun were too bright – there was too much glare. So I reduced brightness and also colour temperature, which then gave the picture a rather surreal feel. The final image is shown below.  

Where the sun is higher in the sky it is brighter and creates a bigger impression on the camera detector. This was deliberate. I didn’t reduce exposure to get a clean disc of the sun. As the sun sinks it loses strength and the bright patch reduces. When the pictures are combined the effect is a bright blob getting smaller and redder as it moves towards the horizon. I think this gives a greater feel for the passing of time – the passing of a sunny day or the passing of a warm afternoon.  Also, a breeze sprang up during the shoot and started to move the leaves on the tree to the left of the picture. You can clearly see the effect. This is another indicator of time passing.

So what about the missing shot. I could have ‘corrected’ the picture with a simple digital edit and added another image of the sun at the missing point. But I didn’t think that was really acceptable. So I thought I would reshoot the sequence. But then I thought maybe the picture looked better without the shot anyway. In terms of composition, the two sets of blobs make for quite a good picture. The gap is also a comment on the passing of time. It’s that point in the day when the cool of the evening starts to be noticeable. So in the end, I decided the picture would be my blog post for this week. Hope you like it too.