An easy project to try at home – dropping items into a fish tank, and freezing the action using a flash. We picked up a fish tank at a garage sale. It helps to have a black background. At first, we just hung a black blanket behind the fish tank, then we decided to paint the inside of the back side of the glass tank with acrylic black paint, and that is working quite well.
You will need:
- Fish tank with flat sides
- Dark background behind fish tank or paint one side of tank black.
- Use a squeegee to remove bubbles from inside glass
- Pre-focus on an object in middle of fish tank to simulate where your objects will fall, and set camera to manual focus.
- Use an off-camera flash
- Have a friend drop fruit or other objects into fish tank
- Pick a friend that doesn’t mind getting wet!
Here is the set-up. You will need to pre-focus on an object inside the tank before filling it with water. Here you see a hammer with a piece of blue tape. The idea is to focus on a simulation of where you expect your strawberries, or other object will be inside the tank when the flash goes off. Then switch your camera to manual focus, so it stays focused on that spot.
Set up a speedlight to flash through the side of the fish tank, and your camera is set up on a tripod facing the front of the tank. For some of these shots we used two speedlights, one on each side of the tank. It takes some practice to get the timing down, and it helps to have two people. One person drops the fruit or other object into the tank when directed by the photographer, who counts down “one, two, three drop!” and attempts to push the shutter that also fires the flash at the moment the object falls into that pre-focused zone. Keep trying!
You may notice that a few of these items have been flipped upside-down for a different look! The flowers weren’t dropped into the tank, they were just held underwater, and then we took a wooden spoon and stirred the water to create air bubbles or water motion around the flowers. When flipped vertically, they appear to be rising out of the water.
And if you like this concept, but don’t have a fish tank, or don’t have a speedlight, you can simulate this look just by using seltzer water in a flat-sided container.
We found a flat-sided, plexiglass vase at the Dollar Store. Just fill it with seltzer water and the tiny bubbles will attach to your object. Use a strong side-light. This was done with a desk lamp.