How to Photograph Water Movement : Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth

How to Photograph Water Movement – Seven Simple Photography Tips

• With moving water, especially a running stream, there is a pattern, but it is almost cyclical. Stand and watch to assess the patterns

• Ripples are enough on their own

• Crop out the banks and horizon - when water fills the frame, it becomes almost abstract art

• Be aware of reflections, they can make or break an image

• Be aware of shutter speed - sharp image versus movement and softness

• Eddies, waves, and ripples repeat themselves endlessly. Small variations are what make a set of photographs interesting. Stay longer than sometimes feels necessary.

• Try variations on a theme - similar but different, like dance moves

  
  

I walked into town the other day along the banks of the River Avon, i was caught up by one of my favourite things to spend time watching - and occasionally photographing - flowing water, the way it catches light, interfering with reflections, almost but not quite repeating patterns.

Water movement makes a fascinating source of artistic images, many of which would make great canvases to go on your wall. I've sold them in huge sizes you and they look fabulous.

Let's stroll through some I took on the way into town, and then comment on a few others.

Image One - Reflections and swirls 1

Image One and Two were taken at the same time, seconds apart. I'd stood and watched the patterns, and the way the buildings opposite were partially reflected, the trunks of trees are cut short in one, not the other, and the patterns in the lower part of the image are 'similar but different'.

I'll do a blog on reflections another time, but just to say that although the building adds a touch of colour, the distortion caused by the water does it a favour as it's not a very pretty!

Image Two - Reflections and swirls 2

Image Three - Smooth and rough together

Moving away from the mix of reflections to Image Three, this in a way gives space to two opposites - the smoother water in the lower half, and the rough aerated in the top half.

Years ago I did a huge canvas of rough water - and my choice of aperture and thus depth of field, combined with shutter speed, produced droplets of water that stood apart from the rst of the water, which was very slightly out of focus.

Image Four - bubbles and flow

Image four captures those parts of a stream that you will recognise where there is something under the surface that causes a 'weir' over which water flows at a different speed, into the pool below. The junction between the riffle and the pool produces a standing wall of bubbles.

If you go for an image like this choose the placing of the riffle accoring to what is in the rest of the image - if I'd put it on the line of the top third, the bubbles would have dominated. As it is, with the meeting on the lower third, the smoother takes the premier balance.

This is going to be shorter than planned, thanks to our second day without internet, I'm sitting in a crowded 'greasy spoon' and likely to be kicked out as the tables are filling with hungries.

Suffice to say, the final image demonstrates the interaction between water and land. Taken last spring in Mallorca, I'm putting it in here as an illustration of using the combination of land and water to beautiful effect.

Image Five - Where land meets water.