This shoot was extremely challenging. I aimed to capture a shot in which the model was moving, capture sharp water droplets and a good expression and pose. To capture all of these elements all in one shot was almost impossible. I ended up shooting one great image of the water droplets, and then just focusing on the model flicking her hair with a good expression and pose. And my final image will be a composite of these two combined.
Technical Aspects & Production
1. The power packs had to be on the lowest output possible, i.e. 3.0, to ensure a sharp capture of the water droplets. The more lights in, the faster the shutter duration, therefore the sharper the droplets.
2. Sheets on floor and over power boxes to ensure no water reaches electricity
3. The model's hair needed to be drenched with water to ensure enough water droplets
4. The snoots in the background helped light and define the droplets
5. A shutter of 125th was used to ensure that a) everything is sharp b) no tungsten/room light affects the shot
6. A fairly wide aperture needs to be used to make sure there is enough depth of field to capture the model and water droplets. The background is not important and did not have to be in focus. Therefore f/6.7 was sufficient.
Test Shoot
Below is a close up of the water droplets. They could be sharper, but I decided I like this amount of sharpness because it still contributes to the 'movement' of the image. Also, the droplets just add an extra element to the image - they are not the sole focal point of the image - therefore this was enough.
Below is a photograph of my test setup and includes all the values that were used to achieve the above image.
Final Image
Minimal editing in Lightroom, water droplets need to be added, image may be cropped for a slightly different composition. Not perfect yet, and there are still more images to go through to make sure this is 'the one'.
Photograph: Tina Nikolovski
