Following up my last post “Rainy Streets” I’m presenting Episode 5 of my popular Instant Inspirations. Don’t use the dull and wet November weather as excuse to not go out shooting. On the contrary, this weather provides for great opportunities to bring new creativity to your photography – go out and shoot puddles! To find out how and see more examples, continue reading after the jump….
Point your camera downwards where it is wet and shiny. Find yourself some puddles, look at them from different angles, go down low or take a high vantage point and see what you can “see” in them. They might be full of surprises. Look for the unusual, the abstract.
You can start with a more conventional approach, as you can see from the two examples below.
A more unusual but a very creative approach is taking a shot with the intention of later flipping the image vertically in post processing. See the following examples of “flipped” photo and the original images out of cam.
The fresh angle of seemingly “upright” objects within a strange surrounding can give your photographs a fresh and creative look.
As reflections in a puddle by their nature lose texture, tonality, clarity and color it is essential you bring back those things in post processing. I always start with the white balance first to warm up the images a bit. Then I push clarity and contrast to the right to get back some punch. The saturation of colors I adjust selectively via Lightroom’s HSL tool (using its color picker). Finally I play with the graduation curves until the tonality seems right. It’s a bit of trial and error, but hey, you are making “art” 🙂
Below find some more images that I hope to inspire you to try some puddle shooting of your own. All photos by the way were taken with the Ricoh GR II.
And to all of my American friends I wish a happy and peaceful Thanksgiving Day! With obviously lots of sunshine 🙂 !!!!
Marcus
Related Posts:
Instant Inspiration (I) – Get Down Low
Instant Inspiration (2) – Motion Blur
Instant Inspiration (3) – Silhouettes