Sound Sculptures

I needed to change the membrane today because it had some dried paint marks that were coming up in the photos. When putting the new black one on it ripped and was unusable (I think they ripped a lot easier because it was so cold that day). I ended up ripping the two black balloons that I was saving so I resorted to the stretchier metallic coloured balloons and used a dark green that would be easy to turn to black in post production.

I cut all the balloons on an angle to maximize the diameter of the opening.  The problem with doing this is it was very easy to get a sharp corner on the edge of the folded balloon when cut.  The sharp corning is the place that rips the easiest, to minimize the stress on the corner I stretched that section over the speaker first.

I collected up all the paints I had and emptied them into some plastic cups where it would be easy to mix with water to create the right consistency.


I wanted to get more reflection off the membrane so I positioned a flash higher up and on an angle that would bounce the light off the subject and onto the membrane where the camera could see.

I also wanted to mininise the mess that was made from each paint sculpture so I got a 1.25L fizzy drink bottle, cut it in half and then cut two square arches out of the front and the back that the camera would be able too shoot through.  I placed it on the speaker and over the paint.  It would also act as a very weak light diffuser.

  These are some of the photos that I took with this setup.  The membrane has been blacked out an exposure brush in Adobe Lightroom.

Red Background Lighting

I got a bit bored with the plain black and white backgrounds and wanted to try something different.  A common technique for high speed water droplet photography is to have a flash with colour gels and a large diffuser behind the subject.  Having a large diffuser creates a large even light source and with water would normally reflect and show the colour of the gels on the water.  I am hoping to see if I can achieve a similar effect with a wet membrane.

Flash behind a large piece of heavy tracing paper, another flash back right to create shadow on the front left of the subject and two flashes on front right for front fill light and left fill light off the white reflector on the left side of the subject.

Before the two right front flashes and reflector

With fill light.
Shadow on the left is a little too strong.

Added red cellophane over the back ground flash.

The background wasn't red or bright enough so I added an extra flash to the background.

Some of the photos with the background:

I wanted a bit more contrast and a gradient in the background so I got another flash and wrapped a blue plastic bag over it.

 The red came out really well and was emphasized by the blue.  The gradient from red to blue/white turned out great.

In this photo the flash with the blue gel didn't fire for some reason, probably hadn't recycled fully.  I had been wanting to see what would happen if I added other objects into the paint, so I put some 100's and 1000's on top of the paint.  Looks okay, might be able to get some nice photos with the 100's and 1000's, just need to shoot more.







I have been wanting to get some tight crops of some thin high formations where the membrane is not visible.  This is a crop from a larger photo that I liked.

I was enjoying trying new things so I got a mirror and put it behind the speaker, ran out of time to take some actual photos with paint in them and couldn't get a nice setup with out lots of blinding reflection from the flashes in the mirror which would have ruined any photos in a dark room.