Timmers Loc: San Antonio Texas.

It is a warm Spring in south Texas, time for some garden fun and water!

I want to revisit an idea. Shot at night in a kiddy pool in the yard. At the time I had a point and shoot tha delivered a 1 mg file as a tiff, but took about one minute to process the image. SLOW!

The idea was to place the camera in an old fish tank, counter balanced with weights to 'sink' it in the kiddy pool so I could shoot both below and above the water. The camera lens was set on the water line pressed against the partly submerged fish tank in the kiddy pool. The idea worked pretty well. And as the session evolved I was able to 'see' what was needed to evolve the concept.

To do this again with better camera equipment will drive a better creative outcome. The last frame, pool five produced a much more creative result. It will be better as I go into the renewed project.

By the way, converting images from color into B&W images is not what I se in the general B&W images from the net. Having grown up in the world of B&W and darkroom has a decisive effect on the post processing of digital color into B&W images for the better I feel.

Pool one B&W.


Pool one color.


Pool two B&W.


Pool two color.


Pool three B&W.


Pool three color.


Pool B&W.


Pool four color.


Pool five B&W.


Pool five color.

toxdoc42

The fish tank worked as a waterproof housing?

Timmers Loc: San Antonio Texas.

Yes, it did, sort of.
Details: I took some long zip ties and attached a 1/2 size cinder block to the outside of the fish tank. Then to either side inside the rank I add some paper covered bricks so as to adjust the final weight such that the tank was buoyant but settled into the water floating just above the bottom of the kiddy pool. That was the easy part. So the tank sank about two thirds of the way into the pool.

I used a slave trigger (like normal) to fire the single flash head above the pool that was on a boom arm. Making sure the flash head and stand were well anchored (there is noting more dangerous that a flash unit and water!).

The really tough part was getting the fake flowers to stay were I wanted them, but that turned out to be easy once I figured it out. I put the flower in a plastic bag filled with water then anchored them to the bottom using clear mono filament line. They floated but stayed put where needed.

I had no underwater housing, but I had read how Kodak had made a photograph of a man fishing in a stream, with the image showing him in waders in the stream, and the bass hooked, you see the fish snagged and you see the man and in fishing gear and a landscape all around behind him. A written explanation follows telling how the image was created. They had the 4X5 view camera in a large box with a glass front and fish was in a large glass box just in front. What I liked as the way the view was both in and out of the water. For me it did not take long to understand that putting the digital camera in a glass fish tank partly submerged would give the effect that I wanted.

Off to the pawn shop, found a medium fish tank for $7 bucks, checked to see it held water for several days so it was safe for the camera, was what I needed.

Now, the big challenge is that during the recent local trash pick up a person down the street put out a huge fish tank, note on it said "leaks badly". I picked it up and now I have a huge tank to float a necked VADA in, but in a big kiddy pool! Shooting the babe both in and under water is going to be fun because that girl loves water! May be put some water melon in there with her! Even better! Plus I still have that fish tank from long ago!