thedailypic•Yr7•131/366•2322•The Impact

A couple weeks ago I posted strawberries splashing in a glass and called it Refreshing, well that was just the start. The process was the same for this shot. My flash was triggered by sound, this time, instead of the splash setting it off, it was the sound of a pellet gun (can you find the white pellet in the photo?). The set up: A balloon filled with water hanging by a string in my basement. After setting the camera and getting the focus locked I turned off all the lights. One off camera flash, with the high speed MIOPS trigger attached to it, set behind the balloon, slighty to the right. The before shot is below, a test shot to make sure everything was working correctly. Camera on a tripod about 4 feet from the balloon, set to take a 15 second exposure by timer. I trigger the camera, wait until the exposure starts, then fire the gun from the right – and hope I hit the balloon. There were a few misfires – one where there was not enough propane in the gun to fire it, the pellet actually bounced off the balloon. Another where the noise triggered the flash a few times (I added that shot below too) and you see the balloon at impact and the spray of water after in the same frame. Finally the perfect shot, I had to delay the trigger 1 millisecond and it made a huge difference. Fast enough to still see the pellet and shape of the balloon, but slow enough to catch the spray. I have plenty of more ideas for this process. stay tuned.

tr/trp