The arrival of spring offers a range of additional opportunities to add water to your photos. This tutorial will help you identify the best opportunities and how to turn them into memorable photos. The areas covered include:
• Location and reflections
• Mist in the morning
• Smoothing waterfalls and streams
• Shooting raindrops
• Polarising filters
• Enter the Gallery
Location and reflections
One of the great advantages of taking photos involving water is that it is all around us. If you live in an urban area, take a look at the town centre after a shower of rain. The pavements and roads will be wet, reflecting back the buildings and sky. These reflections can be incorporated into your compositions, adding colour and life to images that would be less effective without the rain. In fact, there is scope for interesting images of just the reflections.
But reflections aren’t just for the city. In rural areas, a perfect mirror image in a lake can create a very strong image. Water is a great source of wildlife photos. Rivers and ponds offer the perfect backdrop to waterfowl, particularly so at this time of year when they have young. Alternatively, a patient wait may well reward with animals such as deer and riverbank dwellers.