Photo of the month: September

Running behind again. Just getting sorted out after the flood crises and hope to catch up on my photo of the month posts. The photo below is of a drop of milk falling into a glass of water and illuminated by gelled speed lights. The speed lights are set on very low power which has the effect of shortening the duration of the flash so it will freeze motion. The speed lights were triggered when the drop passed through a laser beam. I have a background in electronics and the laser trigger was a home made unit which connected to a timing unit. The photo is taken in a darkened room, I open the shutter on the camera, squeeze the milk drop out of an eyedropper, the drop breaks the laser beam which fires the speed lights after a preset delay, then the shutter is closed. Took quite a few shots to get it all to work, it was quite a pain as once the water was contaminated with a single drop of milk everything had to be cleaned and set up again as the single drop of milk in the water diffused the flash enough to spoil the whole effect.

High speed photography