366 Days of 2012, Day 197 - Frozen River

We see moving water every single day but how often do we think about its form?

Photographers regularly take advantage of extremes of the form of water to create striking interpretations. Two of the most common examples around at present would have to be long exposure sea-scapes and super-fast frozen water splash effects. These images fascinate us becuase they show water in a form we can not ordinarily perceive with our own eyes.

Both types of images have their challenges. Long exposures must be made with the camera well protected from and movement for the entire exposure period which could be many minutes and require very heavy light filtering (like welder's goggles) to prevent over exposure. High speed event images which freeze droplets of water in space are so random an unpredictable that many images may need to be taken to get something well composed and visually pleasing.

While photographing this small waterfall I originally wanted to try the long exposure effect but it was too small and I could not create a pleasing composition. So with that I cranked up the ISO and the shutter speed and got this frozen effect instead.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 197 - Frozen Water'. 1/2000s f/4 ISO-1600 200mm