The Mesmerising Results of Shooting Macro Water Droplet Refractions

I have no qualms in admitting macro photography isn’t my thing, but these images stopped me in my ferocious scrolling. One photographer is sharing images he creates of water droplets refracting light from what is behind them. Click through for some of the most mesmerizing macro photos you’ve ever seen.

Don Komarechka is a nature, macro, and landscape photographer located in Barrie, Ontario, Canada.  Teaching workshops on macro and nature photography, his portfolio is filled with some of the most surreal and hypnotic macro images I’ve come across.

He says:

Getting good droplets can be problematic, as most surfaces will cause water to spread out rather than to bead up nicely. Using just plain water (no glycerine or other additives), one of the easiest foreground objects to use is a dandelion seed.

For most of his images, Komarechka uses a spray bottle to mist flowers with water. Some of the images featured here are simply a blade of grass splashed with water.

One of the most standout features of his images is the way the water droplets seem to glow. To achieve this, he uses an off-camera flash or bright LED flashlight, with the intent of lighting the background more than the foreground.

He explains:

The foreground doesn’t need to be completely in silhouette, but some level of control is required here for best results. Thankfully, a piece of cardboard in the right location can cast a shadow on the foreground without impacting the background light.

In one particularly creative, setup, Komarechka placed a map of the Earth, sourced from NASA’s public domain archives, behind a water droplet.

If you like what you see, you can also find more of his work on Facebook and Flickr. Komarechka is also set to release a 352-page hardcover book titled "Macro Photography: The Universe at Our Feet," that you can back on Kickstarter, due by Christmas 2019.

All images courtesy Don Komarechka, and used with permission.