Rain on Dom’s car. The fleshy spots are my hand accidently muffling the flash

I take photos every day with a Fujifilm F30. I like it mainly because it has a very high sensitivity to light (usable up to 1600 ISO). This means I can take photos inside and at night, without flash. One of the obscure things I like to photograph is liquid. Alcohol, coke, water, rain, anything. I don’t know why but there is untold color and complexity in the thing and each photograph is a surprise. Liquid is moving, often bubbling, frothing; in constant tension between gas and solid. Shot in macro it produces strange pattern and refractions which always make me happy to see. Today we got in the rain and got some lovely photographs. On that note, these are a few liquid photographs which I was especially happy to see. Do note that this page may load slow.

Rain

I was born in Vancouver, a city always enveloped in a humid mist. Have no childhood memories there, but went back to visit and got thoroughly rained on. I like the rain, wet socks aside. It makes the air cleaner, it makes my hair nicer and it cools you down. It’s also just a wondrous pattern, making the most commonplace abstract again.

This photo is of Lucky, a dog that lives on our street. We used to feed him and were going to dopt him, but then he tried to bite Tha in the crotch. That was the end of that. I think he was the neighbor’s in the first place, but they don’t really care for him. When it rains he’s often stuck outside. He looks so miserable that I sometimes let him in the gate.

Booze

With the girlfriend’s encouragement I don’t drink as much booze anymore, but I still love photographing it. For one thing, it’s sitting still, so you can prop the camera on something and shoot in low light. For another, you end up consuming it in stranges with strange lighting, and the booze refracts it in interesting ways.

This image is from a series on arrack that I shot while waiting for someone in their dining room. It was originally . The photos are highly affected, but only in Picasa. If I remember correctly, the highlights and shadows are both raised. The arrack photos have a gallery of their own.

Wine

Wine gets a category of its own cause it’s qualitatively different to photograph. For one thing, the glass is not as easy to frame and red requires a lot more light to capture. That leaves you with mostly white, but it lacks both carbonation and definitive color, making it not as fun. I think I prefer booze or beer cause it’s hard to find abstract images in wine.

That said, we had this Austrian wine in an ice bucket, and that was fun to photograph. The condensation on the bucket for one, and the way the ice bundled around the green of the bottle.

Beer

Beer, that most ubiqitious of drinks, is golden and alive in so many ways. For one thing, it’s carbonated, which gives it movement. For another, it is a rich gold and in the right light its luminescent. Sebastian also buys it for me, hence.

This photo is a beer at Barefoot. At a particular time in a particular place (round 4h45, under the awning) the light is incredible, shining in like a beacon and bending through the facets in the glass.

Soda

Carbonation is the best thing to happen to liquids since fluoride. Or before, moreso. I like the complexity and change the bubbles imply, and anything that moves is, of course, fascinating. Carbonation makes drinking soda feel somehow cleaner and more invigorating than water, though Coke and Sprite are not especially healthy. The bubbles are like rain in that capturing them is a matter of luck, and I’m always surprised at what shows up on the screen.

This is a glass of Coke which, as I peered into it, looked suspiciously like a tongue.

Healthy Liquids

This being water and whatnot. Water is probably my favorite drink, specifically cold. Sri Lankans have this strange superstition about cold water not being good for health, especially when sick, but I love it all the time. Water, in drinkable quantities, is also dull to photograph. As rain or oceans it is remarkable, but in a glass is rather tame and domesticated. Ice is something else. Ice is complex, randomized, and great.

This photo is cheating as it is sugar water, but that’s water enough for me. This is something I spilled on the table at Barefoot which I apologize for. The sugar made it bead nicely and the light was having a lot of fun in there.

Anyways, those are some photos of liquids. I still like them so I guess I’ll take more. Have to be careful though. I once almost put the lense directly into a bowl of Miso Soup and photographing booze has other occupational hazards.

Can also

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Posted on Saturday, October 21st, 2006 in Photography.