Week 45

I didn't know when this photo was taken that I would have captured the day America died.  I'm beyond depressed and upset right now. And I truely fear for the future of this country. I'm going to just avoid politics like the rest of the country and try to live in my own little world, oblivious to the state of the union. Seems to work for everyone else, so I'm going to give it a shot. Just means more time for photography and dog training.

On a much brighter note, I was accepted into the 52 weeks for NOT dogs group.  It's a bit more relaxed that the dogs group, so I was able to start this week!

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and I intend this project to be just that.  I'm calling the set "Inspired" and I plan to use photos created by others as my inspiration to try new techniques, creative compositions and interesting photos each week.
 
The original photo may have been the spark for a new idea, or I may try to recreate the original in a slightly different way.  I'll put a link to the original photo in each photo's description.
And I'll do my best to share what I did to get the photo.

So my first photo was inspired by this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/najy/3359786790/

Who knew this would be such a difficult shot!  :-)  Shot with a Nikon1 J1 with a 10-30 lens, on manual, straight out of the camera- no editing. (1/50, f 5.6, ISO 100, no flash)

I first had to find paper with a non-porus surface.  I didn't have any, so I cut a piece off a thin plastic folder. 

Next issue was how to get the liquid onto the surface.  I used a syringe without a needle which worked beautifully!  However, I think the plastic surface was too slick, so the liquid didn't want to do anything except form circular blobs. I think a different surface would allow some "movement" and positioning of the liquid. 

Then I had to figure out the lighting.  I played around with a "portable studio" I bought several years ago that helps diffuse light, but I couldn't get enough light on the surface through the walls/top of that.  I put a photo of that set-up here:

So I ended up just using the sunlight coming though the window as the main light source and added a few other lights on the opposite side to even it out a bit.  Not ideal, but I'm ok with the results.

Then the liquid... First I tried water, but the camera was having a really hard time focusing on it.  I haven't figured out how to manually focus this lens.  Not sure if it even has that capability since turning it only adjusts the zoom.  Many shots and settings later, I switched to canola oil from the pantry.  THAT did the trick!
 
I was having to constantly play with the settings on the camera because the light kept changing (& moving!) as the sun was going down.  But I'm pretty happy with the results.  It was hard to resist doing any editing,  but I wanted to get something straight out of the camera.