Fluid Dynamics & Liquid Photography

It's a Splash! - High-Speed Photography at its Finest
"Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it." -- Lao Tzu
Water is also marvelous in photography: capturing its vivacious splashes and dancing droplets has become a favorite competition of skills and lens hardware among photographers. Today we continue exploring fluid dynamics of flowing water, capable of morphing into startling shapes and lovely mixture of colors:

Ink Spots in Water: Cataclysmic Billows of "Gas"

This is a glimpse of "Disastro Ecologico" liquid photography series by Italian photographer Alberto Sevesto:

One comment on previous sites that featured his works caught our attention: "It reminds me of the scenes in the Harry Potter movies where Harry enters the pensieve and the memory around him is constructed by ink blots.", via

Sometimes the same ink spots produce intriguing shapes (without any help of Photoshop, that is). Here is a "Black Rider":

Photographer Pery Burge of Chronoscapes creates swirling, engaging landscapes of light refracting through ink, glass and natural objects with a macro lens, without any use of Photoshop:

Liquid "Sculptures": Umbrellas, Spiders, Flowers...

Corrie White "freezes" drops of water with high-speed photography to capture amazing illusions:

Some very happy droplets:

Photographer Brian Davies shares some of the secrets of high-speed and liquid photography

Some planetary and cosmological associations come to mind, seeing these great shots:

And here is a disembodied floating drink, lovingly surrounded by impossible glass splices (this is a 3D work by Artur Wiechec):

Smile! You're on camera! -

Impressive bubble creation:

More bubbles spread over surface of a CD, bathed in reflections:

...as well as wrapped in mysterious blue haze (there is even such a thing as "Bokeh Photography", named after Japanese "Bokeh" word for "Blur or Haze"):

Even though this is obviously Photoshop manipulation, it's rather inspiring and eager to "fly away":

A daisy floats in a rain barrel -

And now nature steps up and serves us a truly refreshing, spring-time visual feast:

Maybe some insects will get caught inside these watery pearls and become "encrusted" for a day? -

A dew drop can even look slightly like hoarfrost:

Earth map in a droplet... and a bullet speeding through a splash (photo by Lex Augusteijn):

Natural Fluid Dynamics Make fantastic wave photography... Look at the glorious colors of island sunset showing through a breaking wave -

One disclaimer, though: this image was color-enhanced, as you can see the original here (photo by Alex Marks). For more of the incredible photography inside the breaking waves, see our feature on Clark Little's work - Inside a Wave

And finally, sea foam can also be very playful, as witnessed by this capture:

Written By Awais Ali