This post is all wet

October 16, 2010 8:29 PM

Water Balloons without the Balloons. How it's done.
posted by jacquilynne (10 comments total)

Popping 30-50 filled water balloons with dye means that at the end of a shoot I tend to look like a Jackson Pollock painting. Most amusing, except that it's pitch black so no-one can see.
...
And afterward? He writes, "I'm absolutely soaked and temporarily blinded!"

Anyone else immediately reminded of the "on Friday night I'd have two Saturday nights and go home" line from Best in Show?
posted by griphus at 8:34 PM on October 16, 2010

neat!
posted by HuronBob at 8:37 PM on October 16, 2010

This is why Al Gore invented the Internet. Awesome.
posted by bayani at 8:44 PM on October 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

The water looks strangely fuzzy instead of like water droplets. Consider my mind not totally blown but slightly inflated.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:05 PM on October 16, 2010

Some other cool examples along the same vein here.
posted by disillusioned at 9:39 PM on October 16, 2010

Really neat! But I think I will stick to photographing insects and arachnida. You don't get wet.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 10:23 PM on October 16, 2010

More related pictures (of coffee, though, not balloons).
posted by bewilderbeast at 10:32 PM on October 16, 2010

Number six looks like an Einstein facepalm.
posted by The Potate at 10:50 PM on October 16, 2010

Awesome. This general technique was pioneered by Harold "Doc" Edgerton of MIT, who started in 1937 by photographing a milk drop coronet, and eventually managed to catch a nuclear bomb explosion in the instant before the blast hits the ground and creates a mushroom cloud. See also: bullet piercing a playing card, bullet piercing three balloons, coffee cup breaking. And gallery of many other iconic images here.
posted by beagle at 6:41 AM on October 17, 2010 [3 favorites]

Anyone else think of something other than a balloon when you opened 10/12?
posted by Mike D at 1:10 PM on October 17, 2010 [1 favorite]