Album cover
Album cover
Album cover
Emily Lee
Fast shutter
Harold Edgerton - How Fast is Fast
Born in Fremont, Nebraska Edgerton was greatly influenced by his uncle (Ralph Edgerton), a studio photographer from whom Edgerton learned his way around a darkroom. His father (Frank Edgerton) also played a significant part in Edgerton’s journey, helping him get a part time job in a power plant after he showed a great interest in electricity. He eventually found his way into MIT as an electrical engineering graduate to study synchronous motors. Being particularly interested in the effect of a large power surge on a motor, Edgerton began experimenting and discovered that a great amount of power fed into the motor cause the mercury rods to flash brightly. When this flash was synchronise with the machine, the rapid moving parts appeared to stand still and therefore could be analysed. From this discovery blossomed his invention of the stroboscope which he used primarily in commercial settings to find faults in factory machinery.
'Water from a faucet' by Harold E Edgerton - 1932
Edgerton then turned to uncovering the extraordinary aspects of everyday events, the first of which being a stream of water pouring from a faucet that he happened to turn around and spot. Ever focused on extending our perception of time and capturing movement too fast for the eye to see, Edgerton continued to photograph events that were commonplace, yet had never bee seen in true detail. Via the use of his stroboscopic light, Edgerton was able to capture images such as the splash crown created by a drop of milk on a plate.
"Softball batter" by Harold Edgerton - n.d.
This new invention was also instrumental in the development of sports photojournalism. Previously it had been near impossible to get an image of a sporting event due to the high speed of the movement, however with a bright flash Edgerton was able to fix the athletes positions and therefore revolutionised sports photography. These new high speed photographs were know as ‘speedrays’ and amazed both photographers and the public.
"Dr. Harold Edgerton - Stop Motion Experiments" by Dayton Art institute - 2013
Edgerton’s primary invention was the gateway to many new photography techniques including time-lapse videography. Edgerton used his equipment to take a long series of images that he was able to sequence together, creating a film of slow moving underwater creatures such as starfish and sand dollars. He also allowed high speed movements to be shown in slow motion through his use of strobe lights that allowed a camera to take multiple frames per second which could then be stitched together in a video to show what the eye had missed. As such, Edgerton can be regarded as the controller of time, able to decelerate high speed events and accelerate low speed events. However, still Edgerton did not care for his work as an artistic process, his drive was always scientific discovery.
Response
Here I attempted to replicate Edgerton’s high speed flash photography for my own series of images. Inspired by his original image of water and his milk droplets experiments, I decided to use fruit dropped in water to create a splash that I would capture with my strobe light. To ensure that these images were pin sharp, I made use of a base ISO of 50 to reduce grain, an aperture of F4 to let in a large amount of light and have a small plane of focus to minimise the possible distraction of the foreground and background. The shutter speed was at 1/250 which doesn’t appear to be incredibly fast, however due to my use of flash to fix the splashes, a faster shutter speed would have meant that the flash and shutter would become unsynchronised and the slightly slower flash would create a black bar across the image where it catches the shutter rather than being able to expose the full image into a fully open aperture.
Via the use of manual focus, I prefocused my images on the centre of the bowl of water so that I wouldn’t have to recompose the shot each time. However, this combined with the shallow depth of field meant that I had to be absolutely accurate when dropping the fruit to ensure that I dropped it within the depth of field. In some images it is clear that I missed this depth of field and as such the pieces of fruit are out of focus.
Additionally, I used a plain white background for these shots in order to isolate the subject, but this looks messy in some shots where I have cleared the front of the bowl from excess water droplets from the previous shot, but not wiped the background. Despite this effect working for some images where it gives an extra dynamic element, I feel that it is too messy in the back of the image and detracts from the clinical feel. In post processing, I attempted to enhance the clinical feel I was aiming for by decreasing the temperature, but I feel that I should have used an infinity curve to eliminate the divide between the base and the background of the image and make the image cleaner. Furthermore, the angle that I used was slightly too low here, creating a large gap between the visible splashes above and below the water. Had I made the tripod slightly higher I would have produced a thinner, crisper line and shown more clearly the surface interactions of the water.
Mark Mawson
Cosmetics photography for "Nivea" by Mark Mawson - n.d.
A more modern artist that uses Edgerton’s high speed shutter photography is Mark Mawson. Mawson utilises this technique particularly for commercial work in advertising big brands although he is still interested in the more creative aspects of the process - unlike Edgerton. In this image, Mawson uses a crisp splash as a feature of the image to make the product more visually appetising.
In both mine and Mawson’s images the subject is dropped into a liquid, producing a splash that is frozen by a bright flash. Where in my image I have only used a single flash unit on the camera with a light box to diffuse the light, Mawson most likely used multiple flash units to light up the subject from the top and all sides to eliminate shadow. He also took the shot from above, cleverly allowing the milk to form both the splash and the background. In my next attempt I will attempt to use multiple flash units and adjust my angle, perhaps even shooting from above.
Class response
In order to take these images, I worked with three others. Two sheets of white paper were set up on adjacent sides as backdrops so that the shot could be taken from two angles, a series of flash units were set up around the fish tank in order to light the subject from all angles (I used a soft box on top of my own camera in order to further diffuse the light), and an assistant dropped the fruits into the tank directly over a circle under the tank that both my own and the other camera had pre-focused on. Unfortunately, due to a technical mistake, the flash units did not correspond with the key light on my camera and thus we resorted to firing them manually in an attempt to fully light the subject.
In this shoot I attempted to further explore the use of fruit in water to create aqueous formations, this time with the use of a cuboid fish tank. This allowed for a minimised background distraction and the ability to completely narrow the cropping to make it seem as if the water is not contained at all or perhaps even that the fruits are not even submerged. I shot again from the side due to the markings on the bottom of the fish tank that would’ve caused a messy, distracting background. Unfortunately despite my efforts to achieve a completely clear background, the angle that my camera was at was slightly too much to the left, allowing the back corners of the fish tank to be visible still (the right side more prominently so). I may yet crop these images further to try as much as possible to eliminate any further distractions.
During the editing process I took inspiration again from Mawson’s images and their cool, clinical feel and decreased the temperature of my images bringing out more of the blue tones and diminishing the oranges. Exposure wise, my ISO was at 50 with F4 and 1/250”. These settings allowed me to let in very little of the ambient lighting, letting the cool light of the flash light up the subject more clinically and reducing the oranges in the image produced by the sodium based light source of the room. F4 with the flash unit allowed a light fall of from the subject, isolating its from the background and blurring the background out the reduce distraction.
This series was taken at the same time as the second attempt at splashes and hence used the same set up. Instead of dropping fruits into the fish tank however, this time the assistant used a pipette to place droplets of ink into the water whilst myself and the other photographer documented the unique structural formations of the ink flowing through the water. The density of the ink being greater than that of the water allows it to sink, however the minimal difference in density means that it sinks slowly and is dispersed throughout the tank before complete dissolving over time. The use of two colours of ink in the shots allowed the image to have a greater depth and contrast thus making them more visually appealing. Similarly to the splash images, I used a cool and clinical editing style which helped to accentuate the blues in the image and therefore define the swirls of ink.
In order to further isolate the ink swirls, I used a large aperture (shallow depth of field) to allow the light fall of to blur out the background and I used the individual colour sliders in lightroom to increase the saturation of each colour and make it stand out against the pale background. However due to the already slightly blue tinged background, I had to find a balance between increasing the saturation of the blue to show off the ink colour better and keeping the saturation low enough that the background didn’t become entirely blue.
In these edits, I played with different combinations of hue and saturation of specific colours in the image. I used the blue and purple hue sliders in order to achieve a variety of different tones ranging from navy through to pink in order to observe the effect of the colour on the entire mood of the image. I found that the darker blue tones produced a strangely sinister effect due to the increased saturation causing areas of deep shadow amongst the swirls that make the image darker as a whole. The lighter blue image. Lastly the pink and purple both produce a more calming, serene mood which is helped by the visually pleasing detail of the swirls of ink.
Before, the emphasis of the edit was the effect of colour on mood for my ink images, however here I experimented by removing colour entirely from my images to see what effect that would have. On the whole, I felt that these images were far more sinister than the coloured ones. This is as a result of large areas of deep shadow with few highlights scattered throughout. The later images rather resemble a cloud of smoke, much like those found on battlefields after the ground has been decimated and thus evokes a more morbid feeling. Furthermore, the monochrome is reminiscent of images taken during the Great War and creates an additional link to conflict which is currently extraordinarily relevant with this year marking the centenary of the end of the First World War.
Photoshop experiments
Here I made use of the blending modes tool in photoshop in order to layer images over each other and produce almost abstract pieces. I initially layered four of the same image over each other, the subjects converging at the centre to create cross effect with the air tunnels originating from the splash of the orange in the water. This produced a busy image, confusing the viewer with a large volume of movement coming from all four sides. The use of the blending mode ‘darker colour’ erased the highlights from each of the three top layers, leaving behind only the shadowed areas of the air tunnel and the orange. Unfortunately this effect did create a large area of darks in the centre of the image, however, the slight offset of each of the oranges allowed for a non-spherical central feature meaning that there was a range of shapes and different tones across the subject which helped to lighten it. Personally I quite like the darkness of the image, I feel that it adds to the atmosphere of confusion and helps to create a ominous undertone, making the image more sinister than it first appears.
I then proceeded to use the blending mode of ‘difference’ which inverts the colours of the lighter areas whilst then darker areas remain the same. Using multiple of the same blending mode over itself generated an inversion of the already inverted colours changing them back to normal. Due to all of the inversions of inversions, there is an almost symmetrical composition of the normal and inverted colours. This makes the image much harder to distinguish on the whole, therefore producing a more abstract composite consisting of different colours and shapes.
Next, I used a combination of both blending modes, the top layer on ‘difference’ whilst the others remained in ‘darker colour’. This allowed for a single inversion of colours, rather than a series of reversals. Sadly this meant that only one version of the orange was visible, ridding the image of the symmetrical central pattern produced by the four different images converging at the centre. This also meant that there was a hard edge on one side of the orange, making it obvious that it is a multiple layered image and forcing the top layer that the orange sits in to stand out far too much against the rest of the image. It is not all bad however, as the the use of the single ‘difference’ layer formed an aura of blue around the orange due to the inversion of the colour of the other oranges in the pattern underneath it, which generated the effect that the orange is glowing, thus bringing it to life as a bioluminescent being.
In my final experiment with this image, I decided to make use of a earlier long exposure image in an attempt to try and make the orange seem to be flying. I used my long exposure of a lorry going past and positioned it over the air tunnel behind the orange, reflecting it horizontally in order to cover the whole area. I then used the liquefy and eraser tool to ged rid of the undesirable parts of the image (e.g. cars and lampposts) and stretch the image to fit the space. I had the orange come in from the right across to the left, replicating the travel of a comic book superhero with a stream of light coming from behind them, and included little space in front in order to make it seem more dynamic.
Here, I combined the ink images with a previous portrait photograph that I had taken. Taking an ink trail with a gap in the centre, I layered the two images together, forming a composite image. Using the blending mode ‘lighten’ allowed the face to be just seen underneath the ink, whilst maintaining the strong colours of the swirls. I initially placed the gap in the ink over Hazel’s eyes so that they were more strongly visible, directly addressing the viewer. I then darkened the edges of the image, creating a vignette in order to highlight further the eyes in the centre.
Next I abandoned the idea of a landscape image and cut out a specific section of the image, pasting it onto a white background and utilising the liquify tool to create a more aesthetically pleasing shape. I used the dodge and burn tools to lighten the eyes and darken the eyelashes to produce more contrast between the two to accentuate the eyes and make them stand out from the rest of the face.
Continuing along this theme, I also cut out the eyes of the model here and erased the area around them so that only the irises remained. I boosted the saturation and vibrance of this layer, placing it exactly over their original position on the black and white portrait to further highlight the eyes. Using the liquify tool once again, I slightly enlarged the eyes so that the image looked only vaguely wrong and the viewer was drawn to the eyes. I didn’t want to over exaggerate them too far as I felt that it wouldn’t suit my image, making it a more Hannah Hoch esque piece.
I later used the sharpening tool to define all of the details of the irises and the eyelashes and adjusted the position of the face, allowing one eye to be seen more through the gap than the other. This gave the viewer a single point to focus on, rather than dividing their attention between the two. However, I believe that the image was better with both eyes highlighted to the maximum using these techniques as we are accustomed to looking at a pair of eyes rather than a single eye and therefore the adjustments I have made have subtly changed the image on a first glance and upon taking a closer look, the alterations are obvious. These changes convey a sense of confusion, but also calm at seeing such a beautiful array of colours, like a galaxy trapped in Hazel’s eyes. The end result is almost angelic with the combination of the galaxy in the model’s eyes and the small halo of blue above her head producing an atmosphere of calm and tranquility.
Sound trigger
In order to take these images, I made use of a Miops sound trigger attached to a key light with three others in slave mode - much like Karl Taylor however, the delay only sound trigger was much shorter than some of Taylor’s work due to the speed at which the balloon implodes when popped. The speed at which the balloon popped was much too fast for myself to be able to press the shutter and capture, therefore I employed the use of external flash units and long exposure. I initially set my camera up for a 4” exposure, ISO 250 and F18 with four flash units on tripods, two in front of the balloon on either side of my camera and two to the sides to light up the edges of the balloon producing slight rim lighting. The larger depth of field would allow me to capture the explosion of the ballon in focus in a deep plane of focus, the shutter speed allowed for enough time to pop the balloon and for the the flashes to be triggered and fix the explosion whilst the ISO kept the amount of light entering the camera at a low enough level that that flashes were able to overpower the ambient lighting.
Beginning at ISO 250, I took a couple of test shots without the flash to check that there was no ambient light visible in the image. I then practiced triggering the flash within the length of the shutter speed to ensure that the balloon was exposed properly. To begin with, the balloon was underexposed so I increased the ISO gradually until I was happy with the exposure (ISO 800). The 4” shutter was efficient as it allowed enough time for my assistant to pop the balloon with a needle from behind, through a hole in the black background. The matte black background ensured that the background of the image was clean and there was no ambient light, the matte also prevented any reflections of the flash units in the image.
After I was happy with the set up, we began to pop the balloons (tied to a piece of dowel protruding from the top of the background board to make sure that each ballon was in the same position so that there were no major focusing adjustments between each balloon change). The first balloon contained purely air so that we could get an idea of the scale of the explosions. From there, we attempted to add things to the balloon to make the explosion more impressive. Using flour inside the balloon proved not to be extremely effective as it all dropped to the bottom, until I experimented with the use of water. Adding a small amount of water allowed the flour to stick to the inside of the balloon and therefore the volume of flour in each part of the balloon was more even. I also placed some flour on the outside of the balloon to increase the volume of powder in the image and thus greater show the effect of the explosion.
We then began to experiment with the use of powder paints inside the balloons. Unfortunately, this being slightly heavier than the flour, it more quickly sank to the bottom of the balloon and formed a clump in the image. To combat this and still show an exaggerated explosion, I added water droplets to the outside of the balloon which showed the position of the balloon before it was popped, having not yet had enough time between the pop and the flash for gravity to act on it due to its small mass. However still, the powder paint sank to the bottom. In response to this, I added a tiny volume of water - so it didn’t dissolve the paint, only allowed it to stick slightly to the balloon - and shook up the balloon right before the image was taken. This allowed the paint to be propelled in more directions.
Karl Taylor
Karl Taylor is an artist well know for his use of sound triggers for high speed flash photography. For all of his work, the time taken for preparation far exceeds the time taken to capture the images. In this image, Taylor captures a scene that occurs for only a fraction of a second, yet with all of his preparatory work he is able to create a set up to capture this moment in an image for the rest of time. Unlike the way in which I captured my images, Taylor uses a continuous light source and uses the sound trigger to automatically press the shutter of the camera rather than using a long exposure. Additionally, Taylor makes use of the delay feature of the trigger in order to allow time for the paint pots to separate in the air after creating the initial noise that will set off the sound trigger.
"Paints" by Karl Taylor - n.d.
Speakers
For my set up, I used a set of three flash units to expose my image, one slave on each side with the key light on my camera. In order to maintain the darkness of the background, I applied pieces of black card to the two side flash units and diffused the key light. This flagged the background, keeping it dark and thoroughly isolating the subject so that it looked more impressive. I used an assistant (Ruby Coplestone) to help me organise and set up the shoot after a class demonstration.
In these images, I attempted to capture motion on such a small scale that it is almost invisible the the human eye. I did this through the use of paints on a piece of black plastic, stretched over a speaker. The tightly drawn plastic allowed for the vibrations emanating from the speaker to be amplified and hence produce greater movement in the paint. Unfortunately, due to the low light levels, I had to increase the size of the aperture thus producing a smaller depth of field. I could not have adjusted my shutter speed from 1/250 as it would have resulted in motion blur in the image, therefore diminishing the impact of the piece. Any faster however and the flash units I used would have become unsynchronised with the shutter, meaning that part of the shutter would be visible in the image where the flash had not yet been triggered.
Beginning with powder paint, I captured the flight of coloured particles in the air, producing a coloured blizzard microcosm. I then used liquid paints, capturing the formation of the droplets as a result of the force applied by the speaker, next proceeding to use a combination of the two paint textures in my images. Unfortunately, due to the unpredictable nature of the paint splashes, my focus was not quite in the right place, resulting in slightly out of focus images. I could have rectified this mistake by increasing the F stop, however this would have made the aperture smaller, resulting in less light entering the camera and I would have therefore had to increase the ISO to compensate, thus increasing grain. Considering this, I decided to continue with the smaller depth of field, relying on the fact that at least some of the paint would fall into the focal plane. This did end up working to my advantage later on when I used a much larger volume of paint. The jumping of the paint at the front end was in great focus whilst the back was blurred out, helping to isolate the droplets at the front and making the image more impressive overall.
Looking back I would have liked to have completed many more trials of this technique, however I was unfortunately restricted by time. I may yet return to this technique in the future however as I am confident in the setting up and execution of the shoot and am happy with how the results of this attempt turned out thus I hope to carry them through into a possible expansion later on in the course.
Fabian Oefner
Similarly to Oefner, I experimented with the use of powder paint on a speaker. However, the motives behind Oefner’s work were far different. With more of an interest in science, Oefner used this shoot as a way in which to explore the visible signs of sound, i.e. what does sound look like?
In order to represent this, Oefner added a variety of sizes of paint crystals to a thin plastic foil stretched over a loudspeaker. He altered the frequency, loudness, and pitch in order to explore the resulting shapes created by the paints.
I would imagine that this set up is extraordinarily similar to my own, however there is definitely a stronger sense of illumination on the left hand side of the image, suggesting that the main light source was on this side, allowing the paint on the right to fall more into shadow.
"Dancing colours" by Fabian Oefner - 2013