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What’s Better For Shooting Splashes, Milk Or Elmer’s Glue?

Sep 4, 2014 by Udi Tirosh 4 Comments

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milk-vs-elmer

If you’ve had any experience with shooting liquids, you know that there are some tricks for enhancing the shape of the drop. Some additives will even make your drops piss on the bowl.

To that extent, many of the perfect milk splashes you see, are not actually milk. It turns out that milk is not the best substance for shooting milk splashes. Alex of Photigy explains:

While milk is generally white it sometimes not ‘white enough’. When in a glass it usually looks nice and white. When we do milk splashes, however, milk may appear less ‘creamy’ than desired. The background light can show through the slightly thinner layer of milk making the shot look less than perfect.

On the other hand:

Elmer’s glue is all-purpose white glue that can be used for many kinds of projects. It works on lots of different materials including paper and other porous materials. Being glue it’s very thick. When mixed with a liquid it greatly increases the liquid’s viscosity. It also has a clear white color. For those two properties it is often used in ‘milk photography’ – whether it is just a glass of milk, beautiful milk splash or droplets of milk flying around cookies.

Alex took the two substances for a stand off, first the real milk (full photo followed by a 100% crop).

Milk_IMG_5245_web Milk_IMG_5245_crop_web

It looks pretty good, but the blue is showing through some of the thinner areas.

Now a mix of Elmer’s glue and water:

Glue_IMG_5322 Glue_IMG_5322_crop1

It looks much more solid and the droplets are different in shape, which at least for my taste looks better.

Alex also tries a third option which is Elmer’s glue, water and Glycerin. Head over to Photigy to see what it look like as well as for some great tips on working with Elmer’s glue for splashes.

[Glue or Milk: what is more useful for liquid photographer? | photigy]

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Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: elmers glue, milk, splash photography, Waterdrop Photography

About Udi Tirosh

Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

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Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

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