Weekly Challenge 12/28/13 - Levels and Layers
This week I decided to do two entirely different shots. I wanted to create a literal and a figurative interpretation of the "layers" concept. Well...let's just say that this week was a failure. For the figurative photo I shot and layered a double exposure image in photoshop, but it was coming out so horribly that I had to trash it. So that was a bust, but I thought I had some redemption in my other idea. I piggybacked on the last challenge where I used food coloring to create some interesting designs frozen in time in water. Much like in an elementary school science lesson, I experimented with differing viscosities of liquids to form varying layers in a glass. I didn't want to use a cup again, but there really wasn't any other suitable substitute around the house. I put in some water and then added in some blue food coloring. I thought, "hey, maybe I can make it look like a lava lamp on the bottom and have it encapsulated with olive oil and rubbing alcohol on top." After the cold water with the food coloring was in, I slowly poured in the olive oil so as to not mess with the food coloring in the bottom mixing around. Here's moment of failure number one, because I poured the olive oil in too slowly and the food coloring was basically all dissolved by the time I finished.
So then i thought, "it's all good, I'll still get the three different layers." Once again, I was wrong. Since pouring in the olive oil was too slow, I figured I'd just pour the rubbing alcohol in a little faster. Yep. You can guess what happened. It didn't sit on top of the oil and got partially mixed in with the bottom layer. In the end though, I found out something cool. If you add food coloring in to the oil on the top, slowly the food coloring falls through the oil and into the water, but because it's saturated with the alcohol and oil, it falls really slowly and in a badass pattern. Sadly though, that doesn't count for this challenge. I was also having a hell of a time with the lighting. There was this shadow that I swear doesn't fucking exist in real life, no matter what I moved I couldn't get rid of it. I probably should have done this in a light box. Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose. Hopefully next week fairs better.
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