Fun with Water (and Balloons)

I've been watching the free on-air broadcasts from Creative Live and recently enjoyed a tutorial on high speed photography by Clay Patrick McBride.  In one section he captured balloons bursting full of water.  Well you've got to try, haven't you?

I waited until I was alone in the house and had bought a small paddling pool to catch the water and set up in the garage.  As my wife is reading this I'll guess she's wondering if a mess was made - I'd point to the lack of evidence!

The idea is not to use shutter speed but rather use the short duration of flashes at low power to freeze the action.  It took me about an hour to set up (see one of the extras).  It requires darkness to be effective as you open the cameras shutter, then burst the balloon, and a laser trigger sets off the flashes to capture the action, before closing the shutter again.

A little bit of experimentation was required, not least to hit the balloon with the pin on the end of a stick in the dark!  There were plenty of misses, with the flash going off without bursting the balloon.  I can imagine this being fun with a group, but as you can see from the set up, there isn't a lot of space in the garage.

In the end I've shared a couple of images.  One where the burst has literally just happened, the other a little bit further in to the explosion.  I can imagine re-visiting this in the future to see what weird and wonderful shapes I can create.