Here's what I know about it. First, the shorter the flash duration the better. If you are using studio strobes, with multiple head outlets, plug in all the heads so that the flash is distributed across all the heads, and use as low a power setting as possible. Sometimes small hand held strobes actually have the shortest flash duration. Do not use modeling lights unless you test to see that they are not giving even a very dark image- they will add a trail. Don't forget in setting up your lighting that you need dark as well as light to define the clear liquid. Don't use gels- add the color later so you get maximum power. Also, get the lights as close to the set as possible for the same reason ( but don't get them wet ) The hard part will be timing. Be grateful that you are not shooting film ( you can run up a thousand dollar film bill and still not get the shot). The best thing is to have an optical slave trigger- I have something called the "Dale Beam" that triggers the flash while you have the camera set on bulb. Another reason for no modeling lights. If you don't have that, hopefully you're young enough to have a really good reaction time. To set up your lighting, take something that is clear like water ( such as a glass object) and get it lit well- probably lights from the back at 45 degrees, and some black cards out of the image range will give you nice lights and darks, but that's up to you. No bare strobe heads- shoot through lumilux or something like that ( frosted plastic that won't melt, but doesn't eat up a lot of light). After that, it just comes down to dropping or throwing water until something magical happens. One more piece of advice- you should not have to work too hard to get the basic shot set up and working. If it doesn't come easy, no amount of tweaking will fix it. This is not a shoot about subtleties- it's more about brute force of lighting and timing. It's been done well by a lot of people, and there's little chance that you will do better and take away their sales, but you should have a shot like this in your bag of tricks- you never know. It's more about learning the technique than copying- at least i hope that's the reason for the post.

I could be wrong, but I don't believe that those images are photos.

If you look at the artist's portfolio, you will also find the following images that are supposedly made from water:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-26376511/stock-photo-one-letter-of-water-alphabet.html
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-23551471/stock-photo-one-letter-of-water-alphabet.html
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-28794496/stock-photo-one-letter-of-water-alphabet.html

I could be wrong, but I don't believe that those images are photos.

If you look at the artist's portfolio, you will also find the following images that are supposedly made from water:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-26376511/stock-photo-one-letter-of-water-alphabet.html
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-23551471/stock-photo-one-letter-of-water-alphabet.html
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-28794496/stock-photo-one-letter-of-water-alphabet.html

Oh, my wiki finger is twitching at the keywords on the first of these. Didn't check out the rest. because of the poor keywording, it's impossible to know for sure, but 'ink' is one of the keywords, so it could be orignially hand-drawn, which was my first impression when the page came up.
I can't see where the author claims the image is 'made from water'. She just says it's 'one letter of water alphabet', like you could draw a wooden alphabet, or an acrylic alphabet, or ...

   I've used Trengrove and their stuff is excellent.  And expensive. When I had ice cubes made years ago, by a modelmaker, not Trengrove, each ice cube was $250. As for illustration, it could be, but I would guess that they started with a photo to get the idea of what water looks like frozen in action. The best reason to shoot it instead of drawing it is that sometimes something unpredictable and great happens...

Sorry for offtopic:  





Awesome image, but this is splash in Father's life... 

There's software called RealFlow that does simulated water splashes. I'm sure there are others as well.

Realflow-$4,000.  YIKES!!  That's a lot of MS downloads.

I am also quite curious how is it done? do you guys this the following link are photo montage? or with the help of computer graphic?

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-red-paint-splashing-image16327115
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-pouring-red-paint-image16327112
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-pouring-milk-image9162675

Have a look at the technically complex way of doing it:

http://www.photigy.com/how-to-create-waterdrops-photography/

Alex Koloskov is a great practitioner as well and posts a lot on his blog on Google+: https://plus.google.com/102865263115020893218/posts

Steve

so this 3 images are done by camera? interesting to know..since some splash like done by computer graphic.

Quote from: mtkang on August 22, 2012, 05:44

I am also quite curious how is it done? do you guys this the following link are photo montage? or with the help of computer graphic?

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-red-paint-splashing-image16327115
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-pouring-red-paint-image16327112
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-pouring-milk-image9162675

The best way to photograph this type of concepts is to use continuous light. using 4-5 powerful continuous light units you can go with the shutter speed way up. look at the EXIF data 1/4000 shutter speed. only this way you can achieve that shutter speeds in a studio.

I have a continuous light kit with a combined power of almost 3000W using 9  5600K fluorescent light bulbs each unit and 60/90 cm softboxes. they are way cheaper than flash units.

Here's one how to video and they did it by... yep, you guessed it. splashing

Google splash: how it was made

Wow, thanks Leaf.  Loved that.  Great to see that they used authentic splashes.

I yearn for a space where I can make such a big splashy mess!  Ohhhh the possibilities...

how about a back yard?