Photography News 14

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Round 1: Water Whether it’s flowing, frozen or falling from the sky, you’re not going to have any problem finding images featuring our first theme – but remember we want your club’s best images

Water is the theme and the number of ways it can be tackled photographically is matched only by its abundance, but we’re looking for images where water is absolutely pivotal to the composition’s success, ie. the picture falls flat without the inclusion of water in some form or other. You’ll probably recall from your science lessons at school that water exists in three forms: as a solid (ice, snow), as a liquid (rain, the stuff we drink) and as a gas (mist, fog, steam) so the subject itself offers numerous approaches. Factor in all the location possibilities and you can see there’s so much potential with this theme. With each entry comprising five images you may think that the best way to approach this round is to submit a variety of water-based images covering as many subjects as possible. Conversely, you may think concentrating on one technique is the way to go. To be honest, there is nothing wrong in either approach. But remember every picture will be assessed on its own merits and judged as an individual image and not as part of a wider portfolio or series. So, for Round 1, we want to see five great images where water in one of its three forms plays a major part in the picture’s success. Good luck.

DROPLETS Why not explore the world of water droplets? This shot, using a TriggerSmart trigger, was lit with two flashguns set to minimum power to give the shortest possible flash duration and freeze the splash.

WATERYWEATHER The weather produces all sorts of water-related opportunities: falling rain, puddle reflections, mist, frost, snow and dew, just to name a few. With mist a little bit of overexposure helps to retain the light airy feel when it’s backlit.

WATERY LANDSCAPES Water in the landscape is an obvious subject, but aim to get some mood into your shots if you want a good score. Long exposures will blur the sky as well as the water, but fast shutter speeds can work well, too.

For Round 1 of the competition we’re looking for shotswhere water is pivotal to the image’s success

THE BIG FREEZE Grab some leaves or other colourful objects, submerge them in a tray of water (or coloured fizzy pop) and put it all in the freezer for a few hours. Remove when frozen and get shooting as the ice block melts.

GET CLOSE UP Not everyone can get to the wider landscape, but there’s plenty of potential right under your nose if you look for it. Here a macro lens was used to explore dewdrops in a spider’s web.

Photography News | Issue 14