Pixiq

Water is fascinating stuff. It is no surprise that water holds humans in thrall when it is an essential ingredient in our evolutionary past (to say nothing of present and future) and a major constituent of our bodies. Although I remember, with great affection, the warning of an elderly Polish friend André, a much-decorated soldier, “Never drink water, nasty stuff — fish f*** in it." Wise words, indeed... dear André, who remained hale and hearty into his late 80s!

In photographic terms water has viewer appeal if it is falling from cliffs, bubbling over stones, has boats or birds on and a plethora of life forms below the surface it. For ‘mood’ it can be frozen in fall by flash or moodily blurred by longer shutter speeds.

Water droplets: Lie at the other end of the scale and the eighteenth-century French painter, Pierre Joseph Redouté, made raindrops on rose petals a trademark in his paintings. Indeed, a mist of droplets can impart a definite freshness to photographic subjects, but it is easy to overdo the effect — look first at how nature does the job with early-morning dew or raindrop before going berserk with an atomizing spray… it's easy to tell.

Water droplets delineating a spider web provide one of those classic nature subjects that we all try to photograph at some time or other. 

Backlighting from the low-angled morning sun makes the droplets sparkle like jewels and if you get the correct angle and you can capture the 'rainbow' prismatic effect.

Molecules and stuff: When you begin to deal with water at a molecular level you can appreciate many other properties such as 'surface tension' that creates a skin-like surface on water that even allows tiny creatures to live on it. You only have to delve a little and one thing that becomes clear is the abject nonsense of the idea that water has a ‘memory’ — the bogus 19th century explanation for supposed efficacy of homeopathy. 

Water droplets as lenses and reflectors: refraction and reflection properties

Optical systems have long fascinated me — I built telescopes and spectroscopes as a kid and have repaired and renovated numerous old brass microscopes since. Hardly surprising then that the optical properties of water droplets should also intrigue me so in two posts I want to reveal some of the ways you can use lens properties of water.

In part 2 I'll explain how you can set up a predictable way of producing them and using them as ultrawide lenses rather than wait for rain.

Take the time to examine raindrops closely and we see both reflections from their outer (and inner surfaces) and also tiny images of flowers or the leaves behind them… In fact, outside as I write, the drizzle has produced fat lenses in the centres of the few remaining nasturtium leaves, magnifying the veins. These leaves (and some others such as cabbage) have a waxy surface which offers very low surface tension so the forces in the drop can keep it rounded and not pulled out until it gets too big and gravity lends a hand...

A droplet acts as a near-spherical lens with a very short focal length so you can create two kinds of images: the ‘virtual’ (magnifying glass) image on the leaves and a ‘real’ inverted image formed by the hanging droplets that act as fish-eye lenses and pull in all manner of extraneous detail at the edges (see the next post).

By the way, the revolutionary microscopes made by Dutchman, Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek, utilised tiny oil and water droplets formed in a hole in a brass plate that you held very close to the eye. He also used tiny glass droplets. With these he revealed the world of micro-organisms. A party-piece was the taking of scrapings from between the teeth of friends and revealing the contents... party-time for protozoa. There is an excellent site for anyone who loves microscopes called Micscape with lots of practical stuff — there is an article on how to make one of the revolutionary designs used by Mr Van L.

Inspiration for this and much else

My inspiration to use water droplets as lenses comes from someone I admire greatly who has been a long-time friend: from the incredible macro photographs and filming of Peter Parks the unassuming artist, biologist, photographer, filmmaker, engineer and much more behind the groundbreaking work of Oxford Scientific Films (OSF) that appeared in many of David Attenborough’s series, and he is now pushing the boundaries with Image Quest 3-D (The 3D film Bugs…). Peter was awarded an Oscar for his ingenious contributions to imaging just a few years ago and has long been both a great friend and inspiration for me. The hypnotic optical effects in the film The Fountain (2006) were created by Peter and his team using immiscible liquids, sometimes at microscopic scales. You can see this via the link above. Digital manipulation and generation are great, but it is optical ingenuity that appeals to me…

For how to set up shots with droplets see here - Water drop lenses how to set up the shots