Recently when walking through a local arts and crafts market (my wife has a thing for them so they’re a regular part of my weekends) I found myself in a photographers stall looking at his work.

One of the most striking images that he had on display was a large colorful abstract print with lots of swirling reds and yellows. At first I couldn’t’ work out how he’d achieved the effect but on a closer look found that the image actually seemed to be a macro shot of paint – two colors mixed slightly together.

I loved the effect so pressed the photographer for a little more information.

The shots were simply two colors of poster paint mixed together on a plate. One color (red) was the dominant one with a little less of the secondary one (yellow) swirled in (don’t mix them too much or you’ll just be photographing an orange paint).

He took the shots with a 100mm macro lens in a well lit situation. He got in close enough that you couldn’t see the plate at all – the impact was striking and looked great blown up quite large – it’d make a great feature image for a big white wall.

Of course the photographer was reluctant to let me photograph his work (I don’t blame him) so you’ll have to use your imagination as to the results (the shot to the left is similar – although more three dimensional and has more colors than the shot I saw at the market).

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