Water Casts

Those who have read my blog recently are aware of my enjoyment of Victorian age English magazines. One magazine in particular, Pearson's, has caught my interest. While researching bartitsu for an upcoming book, I found that a fascinating article on photographing "water casts."

This is nothing more than taking a picture of a man throwing a bucket of water using a fast shutter speed. But the author, a Victorian/Edwardian age Englishman named Archie Williams has taken some great photos using the premiere photographic equipment available in 1901.



Wrote Williams, "My attention was first drawn to the artistic possibilities latent in a bucketful of water by the manner in which a thatcher damped a pile of straw to make it tough and supple enought for his purpose. With a quick turn of the writst he projected a thin seminciruclar film which covered several square feet, glistening like the sun and suggesting many beautiful forms."

I'm not sure my Nikon D-90 with all of it's metering and digital features could do much better than this Victorian photographer.