More glasses, water and colour experiments

[Manfred M]

This is a five-image composite of the glassware / food colouring I took yesterday. Each glass was photographed individually as the dye mixed with the water in the glass. I then aligned all five exposures, masked in the appropriate areas and I got this image.

[ST1]

Nicely done Manfred, was it a deliberate decision not to include the full reflections of the glasses or were you confined due to the size of you reflective surface.


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[Manfred M]

The setup in this image is identical to the one shown here: Some rainy afternoon fun

The camera was on a tripod and I changed the way I cropped and processed some of the shots. The glasses are sitting on a piece of black, translucent acrylic and my background is a sheet of white, translucent acrylic that I am shooting a studio light at (with small soft box attached). The base is around 2ft x 2ft / 60cm / 60cm, so that limits the reflections unless I shoot at a slight downward angle. My interest is really to explore how the light interacts with the acrylic base, the light diffuser, camera angle and light absorption by the glass, water in the glass and the food colouring.

I'm looking for comments and thoughts, like you have given here, to confirm what others see in these images. Like I said in the title, these are experiments.

[ST1]

Manfred my only additional thought is the second glass from the left has fully diluted food colouring within it. Unlike the others that all show the dilution in progress IYSWIM.
However that may have been your intention to create the odd one out.


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[Manfred M]

Thanks Peter; the yellow food colouring dispersed in the water much more quickly than the red, blue or green, but if you look closely there are areas where it had not mixed completely when I took the shot.





The yellow is much lower contrast and the white background does not stand out nearly as much as the others do. The odd one out is actually the left glass. I wanted an odd number of glasses and only had four dyes, so I dropped red and blue into it, hoping to get a purple, but that did not quite work out as planned.

[xpatUSA]

Interesting choice of colors with them being close to the complementary pairs in the CIELAB color model i.e. yellow v blue and red v green ...

[Manfred M]

Interesting choice of colors with them being close to the complementary pairs in the CIELAB color model i.e. yellow v blue and red v green ...

Lets's see.

1. I opened the blue food colouring first because it is a bit harder to find and I had never used it before in a photograph. I put it into the middle glass.

2. I had used the red before in a number of pieces, so it went second, as I moved to the right.

3. Green is a deep colour and this was a new bottle as well, so moving from left to right, I tried it next.

4. Yellow is another colour I had not tried before, but I was out of glasses moving to the right, so I went to the glass closest to the middle one and put yellow into it.

5. Five glasses and only 4 difference food colour dyes, I decided to see what would happen with a drop of red and a drop of blue. That went into the left most glass and made a bit of a dark mess, not a bright purple that I was hoping for.


That's all the thought that went into the order and colours that I used....

[xpatUSA]

Lets's see.

1. I opened the blue food colouring first because it is a bit harder to find and I had never used it before in a photograph. I put it into the middle glass.

2. I had used the red before in a number of pieces, so it went second, as I moved to the right.

3. Green is a deep colour and this was a new bottle as well, so moving from left to right, I tried it next.

4. Yellow is another colour I had not tried before, but I was out of glasses moving to the right, so I went to the glass closest to the middle one and put yellow into it.

5. Five glasses and only 4 difference food colour dyes ...

That's all the thought that went into the order and colours that I used....

Perhaps I should have asked what the options were. A little research shows that RBGY are common in assorted food color packs - so there was no choice of colors made at all ...

[Manfred M]

Perhaps I should have asked what the options were. A little research shows that RBGY are common in assorted food color packs - so there was no choice of colors made at all ...

They only had the red, green and yellow at the local grocery store. I just happened to see the blue at a bulk food store, so I picked it up. The bulk food store has "kits" with more even shades, but I didn't think I needed a dozen different colours. There is a purple that I might add to my collection.

[mugge]

Just my two cents worth, Manfred. This setup you have here is the most difficult thing I have seen you attempting so far. I am very curious where this is going for I think this is going to take a while before you, yourself is satisfied.
Cheers Ole

[Manfred M]

Just my two cents worth, Manfred. This setup you have here is the most difficult thing I have seen you attempting so far. I am very curious where this is going for I think this is going to take a while before you, yourself is satisfied.
Cheers Ole

Thanks Ole - while this image looks complex, it was far simpler to do than some of my other images where I used food colouring in water.

Where am I going with this? I haven't got a clue. I started doing still life work back in the late winter / early spring during a Covid lock-down period when I could not get out and do the types of photography I tend to do (street, architecture, landscape, people (and heaven forbid!) travel). The images have been well received locally and nationally (competition wins), so I thought I was on a roll and am refining what I am doing.

[Jim A]

Just viewed your earlier image, where the glasses held even amount of colour, Manfred. This one is "streets ahead" or do we now say "light years"? I really like the inclusion on the left of the two colours, it just certainly adds.

[rpcrowe]

How did you keep the water from flowing out of the bottom set of glasses (LOL)

[Manfred M]

How did you keep the water from flowing out of the bottom set of glasses (LOL)

It's all smoke & mirrors; well at least the mirrors part is true...