Quick Photo Tip: Wetdowns

by Joe on February 3, 2022

Giving the street a wet down.

When you’re watching a car commercial on TV or looking at an ad in a magazine, have you ever noticed that the street looks wet? If not, next time one comes up look at the street. Why do they do this you ask?

In my online class with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshop I conduct around the planet, I teach my students how to take their imagery what I refer to as “up a notch”. I do this by introducing the elements of visual design to them. One of the things we work on is Visual Tension, and one of the ways to create it is by the use of reflections. We also work on showing the subject and its reflection, but right now I want to talk about plain old reflections.

Besides the obvious reflection, that being in a mirror, reflections don’t necessarily have to show anything that’s recognizable. It can just be light and color reflecting off a surface. That alone is usually enough to create a pleasing and memorable photo. How do you achieve this? By doing a Wet down.

In the days when I shot the full line car brochures for several companies and national car campaigns, we use to do a Wet down before I shot. This required a water truck to lay down enough water to cover a street. There were two reasons for doing this: The first was to hide a particularly bad-looking street. Wetting the street down would hide all the problems by darkening the surface. The second reason was to create a surface that would reflect the environment in it. Being wet, it also took on a shine that made it easy to reflect all the light and color.

I realize that you probably can’t afford the money for a water truck, but I’ve also accomplished a Wet down by using a hose. I’ve even taken a bucket with me when I was shooting near a body of water.

There are other things to consider wetting down. A pier for example, or the sidewalk in your front yard. Anything that can create a reflection will look a whole lot better if it were wet. Sometimes a partial Wet down looks good, as in the photo below of the boy sitting on a pier and the silhouette of the two bikes against a railing. I had taken along a bucket which proved to be a good idea. As Eddie Adams once said, “When you get lucky, be ready”.

Give it a try sometime and you’ll see how easy it is to create stronger photos. All you have to do is to “Stretch Your Frame of Mind”!!!!

It’s food for digital thought.