Creating a liquid mixture for waterdrop photography

[Music] hi there my name is nicole young and in this video i'm going to show you how i create the liquid that i use for my water drop photographs the ingredients i use are water xanthan gum food coloring and cream now i like to use half and half it's just something i always have in my refrigerator i use it for my coffee but the reason i like to use cream is because it adds a nice kind of opacity to the water drops and there's also a little bit of texture and kind of swirl as you can see in this photograph now just as a side note what's happening here in this photo and with pretty much all of the water drop images i create is that the water that the liquid is dropping into is actually just plain tap water it looks like it has color added to it that's just a reflection from the backdrop so the only thing i actually use this kind of recipe for is the water that's actually falling into the bowl and that's creating that splash up so the water that's in the bowl is just plain tap water if you were to use a water with no additive or no thickener such as xanthan gum then you'll still be able to get some good photos but one thing you'll notice is that you get a lot more splashes and kind of a messier look to the overall image you can see some of the splashes are really kind of flying off of this you know water drop pretty quickly they're kind of blurred in this example i only have water cream and some food coloring so i did not add any xanthan gum to this specific photo when you add xanthan gum to your liquid you're going to get a much cleaner look with fewer splashes like the bad kind of splashes those little water droplets that are flying everywhere you're also going to get more consistency with your splashes now here are those two images side by side they are photographed at the exact same settings the only thing that was changed is the liquid in the tube so i i finished out the images on the left and i drained the tube and i put the new liquid in with the xanthan gum and i got the image on the right what i like to do is i like to create a liquid concentrate with only water and xanthan gum so i can just add it to my mixtures whenever i need to i start out with one cup of warm tap water the warm water will help to dissolve the xanthan gum powder next i add one half teaspoon of xanthan gum i'm just sprinkling it here to kind of help it dissolve better you don't want to dump it all in at once or it kind of creates a big clump now by the way xanthan gum is pretty easy to find you can find it at the grocery store or you can buy it online next i mix up the mixture and just kind of get it as mixed up as possible you can see there are a lot of little chunks in there sometimes i also like to kind of shake the jar that i have it in to kind of integrate it a little bit better and then i just let it sit overnight now this is that container the next day it kind of has congealed into almost a jelly next i'm going to create the liquid i use for the water drops in my photographs now i don't really use specific measurements for this i just kind of eyeball it but i'm going to start here with a cup of water and to that i will add some cream again i use half and half next i add the food coloring and i like to use gel food coloring and this is kind of a bright neon purple that i added to this mixture then i add some of the concentrate that i created with the xanthan gum i just keep adding it and mixing it until i find that i have a good consistency and this is a photo that i created with that mixture now i can keep using that pre-made concentrate with the water and xanthan gum for future water drop photographs be sure to catch my session at this year's out of chicago virtual conference where i'll be discussing my gear and setup for my water drop photographs

Channel: Nicole S. Young

Views: 4,424

Keywords: nicolesy, photography, waterdrop, splash photography, liquid, recipe, water drop, waterdrop photography, mixture

Id: 7zSY0DLbIJk

Length: 4min 43sec (283 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 09 2021