Learn how to capture the wonder of water using diverse photography techniques.

OCEANS 13!

Welcome to Issue 13 – WATER! And the official kickoff to Season 2 of Photo BootCamp Academy! I’m so happy you’re here. We’ve learned a lot in the last 12 issues and we’re just going to keep building from there. Browse through the previous issues and see what new things you can learn from those! Our community is so supportive and encouraging and it shows. I’m really proud of these guys!

This month is all about one of my favorite subjects – WATER! Water is a huge part of my life and I’m really thrilled to share this with you this month.

MAKING A SPLASH

Water is a vast subject. It is literally everywhere, from the cells of our bodies, to the oceans, to falling from the sky. It’s pretty much accessible everywhere we go. Which, as photographers, means many opportunities to have fun with it!

What makes water so fun? For starters, there are so many things you can do with it, photographically speaking:

HOW?

First thing you want to do is spend some time getting inspired and letting your creativity percolate. Find some water photos that you’d like to learn how to take.

A great resource for this is Pinterest! Simply type in the type of photography you want to see and prepare for inspiration station! You will see more stunning images than you dreamed possible. You can do the same with a Google image search as well.

Pick one or two and go about creating your own version of it. Challenge yourself. Pick something you’ve never done before and stretch to make it happen. Remember, this is how we all learn!

Here are some tips to consider:

• Choose one photo that inspires you
• Consider what you’ll need to shoot your own version of it. Do some research if needed. Make it a fun project.
• Consider composition – be sure to remove distractions
• Simplify the scene. Remember, less is more!
• Take note of what the best light will be

Play with settings! Shutter speed is one of the most fun things to play with when photographing water. The shutter speed you use will either freeze movement or create the illusion of more. You know that smooth, silky look you see in so many water landscapes? Slooooooow shutter speeds!

Fast shutter = freezes the action
Slow shutter = creates movement

Try different speeds and see what happens.

Inside BootCamp Magazine

Featured Artist

We’re now on our 2nd Season! It’s been a wonderful experience seeing great and amazing images from our members. Now let’s take a look at this month’s magazine.

Here’s our featured artist of the month, Sheree Ebanks, from Cayman Islands.

For her featured image, she was experimenting with water drops again. This time she got the flash and as holding a zip-lock with red water over a number of different bowl. This was about the fourth try, with a clear bowl in a white one, and she also colored the water in the bowl green, and dropped the red water from a zip lock. She learned how to remote the flash, got a wireless remote for the camera.

Sheree did lots of experimenting and learning. This was over five hours and about 800+ photos with five different set ups!

Comment: Gina Skinner – “Sheree – I love the red, it’s surreal and other worldly! No telling where this capture would take my imagination if I didn’t know what it is 🙂 Excellent , such an understatement,… beyond excellent to the 10th power, lol!”

Cover Image

This month’s featured magazine cover image is from Juan Acosta from the USA. This is an image of some jellyfish. He shot this picture while he was at the Vancouver, Canada Aquarium.

Active Members

Do you want to be inspired more by these watery images? Let’s have a look at some wonderful images from our active members.

We have one from Derryl Friesen from Thailand. Surrounded by lush tropical forest, Kuang Si (Xi) falls cascade down through three tiers of limestone in the early morning light, into spectacular azure pools near Luang Prabang, Laos. This photo is in memory of his beloved dad, Big Ben.

Comment: Gina Skinner – “Derryl – this is exquisitely serene, and it reminds me of a beautiful promise that I have read “… water will burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert plain. The heat-parched ground will become a reedy pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.” Sending comforting thoughts and an embrace your way.”

Then we have Erez Shilat from Israel. This is Water in macro. Erez said that this photo was taken on a Friday not far from his home.

Next we have one from Marion Robinson. He is from New Zealand. This is an image of a “Water Fall”. It’s only about 15K’s from where he had driven and passed the sign post many times and thought it would be insignificant but he decided that it might be worth a visit. You never know what can almost be in your backyard. Half the waterfall was in the shadow and the other side a bright light. It looked better converted to black and white.

Comment: Christopher Goff – “Remarkably well done, Marion. I am struck by the contrast of the smoothness of the water and the clarity/texture of the rocks, and how well black and white enhances that. And that you got minimized any obvious areas of “half in the shadow and the other side in bright light” so that it hangs together. Nice job.”

And we have from Romy Villanueva. He is from the Philippines. He was attempting a 3-droplets collision. This photo shows the third droplet still in the air so technically it is still a two drop collision but Romy got an entirely different image. The background colors reflected on the water collision and the lights on the ceiling and the flash gave the silvery luster.

Next on the list is from Tessa Blewchamp from the United Kingdom. This was a shot from her afternoon with the dripping tap. Tessa looked at Pinterest for some ideas as Brent suggested and tried to capture refractions from a patterned tablecloth in the drops. She was aiming at catching this as a series of drops, but the best image was this one just before the drop fell. Taken with on-camera flash with camera on tripod and zoomed in from a distance then cropped a lot. She also used Topaz Sharpen AI, which she just got, to finish off the sharpening.

Comment: Deon van der Merwe – “Great photo Tessa. Your timing was impeccable, catching the image of the flowers just as the drop was about to fall.”

That’s it! These awesome images just proves to us that even with water we can still create stunning images. All we just need to do is go out there and shoot. Do you want to be a part of this super exciting community? Why not check out the complete BootCamp Magazine and see for yourself!

Summary

• Water is an almost limitless subject. From micro, to macro, to wide landscapes, to studio, and more.
• Your creativity is the limit here! Take time to find photos that are inspiring to you and invest in learning how to take your own version of that photo! This is how we all grow as photographers.
• Take action! DOING is how we learn. As we learn, we grow.
• Shoot something new and outside of your comfort zone.
• And most of all, approach your photography with a childlike curiosity! PLAY! Experiment. Mess up. Learn what doesn’t work so that you learn what DOES work.

Related Articles

Did you enjoy this article? Check out these related articles, too:

• Leading Viewers On A Journey Through An Image!
  A creative way to use leading lines to make your images more exciting and meaningful.
• Telling a Story Through An Image Using Patterns
  Using patterns to draw your viewer’s attention to you artistic images.
• Isolating a Monolith using Long Exposure
  How A Neutral Density Filter Can Be Used To Isolate Your Point Of Interest And Tell Your Story

Do This Now

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Share your thoughts with me in the comments section below. I love hearing what you guys come up with!