To create this image of water scarcity and drought I began by having my partner toss glasses of water up in my studio while I photographed them with my Nikon D800 and using a combination of Profoto and Speedotron strobes. I chose the water splash that seemed most appropriate and used the pen tool to create a clipping path. I think created a selection from the clipping path using a on pixel feather, then created a new layer from the selection. I found an image of what appeared to be dry cracked earth, but that actually was a drained and muddy rice paddy I photographed in Myanmar, then pasted it behind the water splash. Next I found a sky with a bit of sun flare and a feeling of a hot and dry day and pasted it behind the rice paddy image. I created a layer mask on the rice paddy layer and used a quick selection tool to select the sky and filled that selection, in the layer mask, with black, revealing the hot and dry sky underneath. I positioned the water splash, then duplicated it, made it black with a hue and saturation adjustment layer (by dragging the lightness slider all the way to the left), gaussian blurred it slightly and positioned it below the splash as a shadow.Voila!

This image really brings home the idea of water scarcity and misuse by contrasting a senseless splash of water over the dry parched earth in which the need for moisture is more than readily apparent. The image contrasts the painfully dry ground and hot cloudless sky with the cool blue splash of water. In an instant the questions of drought, water management, scarcity, conservation and water recycling all jump to mind. With the appropriate headlines and body copy a powerful and compelling message of almost any water issue can be communicated.