Uploaded June 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Today I'm going to share how I used India Ink and water to create an amazing in-camera effect. One of the things that I love is to collaborate with other artists. What's really nice about that is when you're working with other creatives like a hair stylist, makeup artist, wardrobe stylist is that they bring you ideas. They might send me inspiration that they've been looking at in magazines or online. My makeup artist for this shoot showed me a photograph of India ink and water. It's these little vials of liquid ink, and what it does is it makes these beautiful plumes almost like smoke when it enters the water. She proposed that we do a shoot using this technique for a creative, in-camera effect. So this was actually completely her idea and I love how it turned out!
Let's look at the creative effect. What I did is I bought a narrow vase, and the reason that I did this is I knew it was going to have the subject's face behind the vase, but if the vase was too thick or round, it would distort her face. So the narrower the better. I bought it on Amazon and then I went online and I bought a collection of India inks so that I could play with different colors.
The setup:
Fundamentally, this is a one light setup. The main light and the only light that I ended up using is a Profoto white beauty dish with a grid. The position of the light is relatively high up to her face, and the reason for that is so there would not be a reflection in the glass.
I use a grid because originally I was trying to make the background dark and a grid will help with that. I also used two small white umbrellas and they have a teal gel. For the final shot, I ended up just cropping it and doing a nice tight shot. You don't even see the background, therefore this could be completely achieved with just a single light.
Camera Settings:
I used a Canon, 5D Mark IV and a 180mm macro lens. I selected a macro lens so I can get so tight and close up and get all the detail of the smoke in the skin. There's one more important thing to notice here, and that's my aperture. I'm shooting at an aperture of F20 because when I was at a wider aperture, the ink in front of the face would be completely out of focus and only the face and focus. I needed to shoot at F20 in order to get both the ink and her face, in focus and that's why I went to an ISO 800 so that I could shoot a F20 and still have enough light without having to turn my light up to full power.
Post Processing:
This image had quite a bit of color grading and processing in order to get it to its final result. The ink is greenish in color and when the light passes through, It made the skin look kind of greenish, and so there was a lot that I had to do. Also, the makeup was yellow and blues and greens and I wanted the skin to be pale and maybe introduce a little bit more of that blue.
I was shooting tethered to Capture One and I started adjusting the white balance, contrast and the saturation, without going into Photoshop just with my color grading of the raw file. Most of what I did was desaturated skin tone, cool down the white balance, increased the contrast like crazy and pop the whites. In Photoshop I smoothed out the skin, lightened up the eyes, and also brightened up both the saturation and the exposure of the ink.
📸 Gear:
✅ Canon 5DIV: https://prf.hn/l/EJDBPoe/
✅ Canon 180mm Macro 3.5: (discontinued, linking to 100mm): https://prf.hn/l/W4xmYzg/
✅ Profoto D2: (discontinued, linking to new D3): https://prf.hn/l/K9ENnmk/
✅ Profoto White Beauty Dish + Grid: https://prf.hn/l/7RPLemA/ / Grid: https://prf.hn/l/YLBGOJy/
Other:
India Ink amazon.com/Dr-Ph-Martins-Bombay-Bottles/dp/B0026I10EE/ref=sxin_1_ac_d_pm?ac_md=3-2-QWJvdmUgJDI1-ac_d_pm&cv_ct_cx=india+ink&keywords=india+ink&pd_rd_i=B0026I10EE&pd_rd_r=a88ba8ac-b8a2-4fce-b330-8e1cdef844b6&pd_rd_w=4Huep&pd_rd_wg=JtkL4&pf_rd_p=516e6e17-ed95-417b-b7a4-ad2c7b9cbae3&pf_rd_r=FEZRKD39EAS7002C9R2Z&psc=1&qid=1585065275
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🔥 Want to learn these types of techniques and more? Check out my class Master Studio Lighting: https://lindsayadler.photo/masterstudiolighting.
----
Portfolio: lindsayadlerphotography.com
Instagram: instagram.com/lindsayadler_photo
Facebook: facebook.com/lindsayadlerphotography
Twitter: twitter.com/lindsayadler
Education: learn.lindsayadlerphotography.com
Some of the links in this description contain affiliate links to partners.
Today I'm going to share how I used India Ink and water to create an amazing in-camera effect. One of the things that I love is to collaborate with other artists. What's really nice about that is when you're working with other creatives like a hair stylist, makeup artist, wardrobe stylist is that they bring you ideas. They might send me inspiration that they've been looking at in magazines or online. My makeup artist for this shoot showed me a photograph of India ink and water. It's these little vials of liquid ink, and what it does is it makes these beautiful plumes almost like smoke when it enters the water. She proposed that we do a shoot using this technique for a creative, in-camera effect. So this was actually completely her idea and I love how it turned out!
Let's look at the creative effect. What I did is I bought a narrow vase, and the reason that I did this is I knew it was going to have the subject's face behind the vase, but if the vase was too thick or round, it would distort her face. So the narrower the better. I bought it on Amazon and then I went online and I bought a collection of India inks so that I could play with different colors.
The setup:
Fundamentally, this is a one light setup. The main light and the only light that I ended up using is a Profoto white beauty dish with a grid. The position of the light is relatively high up to her face, and the reason for that is so there would not be a reflection in the glass.
I use a grid because originally I was trying to make the background dark and a grid will help with that. I also used two small white umbrellas and they have a teal gel. For the final shot, I ended up just cropping it and doing a nice tight shot. You don't even see the background, therefore this could be completely achieved with just a single light.
Camera Settings:
I used a Canon, 5D Mark IV and a 180mm macro lens. I selected a macro lens so I can get so tight and close up and get all the detail of the smoke in the skin. There's one more important thing to notice here, and that's my aperture. I'm shooting at an aperture of F20 because when I was at a wider aperture, the ink in front of the face would be completely out of focus and only the face and focus. I needed to shoot at F20 in order to get both the ink and her face, in focus and that's why I went to an ISO 800 so that I could shoot a F20 and still have enough light without having to turn my light up to full power.
Post Processing:
This image had quite a bit of color grading and processing in order to get it to its final result. The ink is greenish in color and when the light passes through, It made the skin look kind of greenish, and so there was a lot that I had to do. Also, the makeup was yellow and blues and greens and I wanted the skin to be pale and maybe introduce a little bit more of that blue.
I was shooting tethered to Capture One and I started adjusting the white balance, contrast and the saturation, without going into Photoshop just with my color grading of the raw file. Most of what I did was desaturated skin tone, cool down the white balance, increased the contrast like crazy and pop the whites. In Photoshop I smoothed out the skin, lightened up the eyes, and also brightened up both the saturation and the exposure of the ink.
📸 Gear:
✅ Canon 5DIV: https://prf.hn/l/EJDBPoe/
✅ Canon 180mm Macro 3.5: (discontinued, linking to 100mm): https://prf.hn/l/W4xmYzg/
✅ Profoto D2: (discontinued, linking to new D3): https://prf.hn/l/K9ENnmk/
✅ Profoto White Beauty Dish + Grid: https://prf.hn/l/7RPLemA/ / Grid: https://prf.hn/l/YLBGOJy/
Other:
India Ink amazon.com/Dr-Ph-Martins-Bombay-Bottles/dp/B0026I10EE/ref=sxin_1_ac_d_pm?ac_md=3-2-QWJvdmUgJDI1-ac_d_pm&cv_ct_cx=india+ink&keywords=india+ink&pd_rd_i=B0026I10EE&pd_rd_r=a88ba8ac-b8a2-4fce-b330-8e1cdef844b6&pd_rd_w=4Huep&pd_rd_wg=JtkL4&pf_rd_p=516e6e17-ed95-417b-b7a4-ad2c7b9cbae3&pf_rd_r=FEZRKD39EAS7002C9R2Z&psc=1&qid=1585065275
----
🔥 Want to learn these types of techniques and more? Check out my class Master Studio Lighting: https://lindsayadler.photo/masterstudiolighting.
----
Portfolio: lindsayadlerphotography.com
Instagram: instagram.com/lindsayadler_photo
Facebook: facebook.com/lindsayadlerphotography
Twitter: twitter.com/lindsayadler
Education: learn.lindsayadlerphotography.com
Some of the links in this description contain affiliate links to partners.
