Make water look wet

[Vaughn]

More like perhaps, but not like it. No representation is the real thing. Stopped water looks like stopped water...but at least one has patterns to look at.

I like the addition of time to an image

[jnantz]

I don't have a particular photo to demonstrate this but the question is how do we make water look wet. I love long exposures as much as the next but the water looks more like silk instead of water. If allowed by admins, let's post the pictures that show the fluidity and unique features of moving water. Please no water drops, droplets, snow, long exposures. Who can make water look wet?

sorry to seem like a wet blanket (pardon the pun ) but none of the photographs posted / examples I have seen look "wet" to me.

what does wet look like to you, because it seems more like a conceptual thing to me, and a single photograph of moving or partially moving, still &c water really doesn't
give the illusion of "wet" it just looks like photographs of water.

[Tin Can]

Then make one

OP wants example

My Tiny Creek grabbed ME in a blink, I stopped my car, in a very odd place,


I HAD to shoot it

asap

sorry to seem like a wet blanket (pardon the pun ) but none of the photographs posted / examples I have seen look "wet" to me.

what does wet look like to you, because it seems more like a conceptual thing to me, and a single photograph of moving or partially moving, still &c water really doesn't
give the illusion of "wet" it just looks like photographs of water.

[esearing]

I attempted to add streaks of grey by burning in slivers longer on white flowing water. It gives it more "texture" but not that wet shiny look.

[Vaughn]

sorry to seem like a wet blanket (pardon the pun ) but none of the photographs posted / examples I have seen look "wet" to me.

what does wet look like to you, because it seems more like a conceptual thing to me, and a single photograph of moving or partially moving, still &c water really doesn't
give the illusion of "wet" it just looks like photographs of water.

True. But nothing says 'wet' better than the classic wet t-shirt image.....

Hard to get the feeling of 'wet' with screen images. The surface of the paper has so much weight to carry in giving an image the feeling of 'wet', that a computer screen can't even come close.

[Drew Wiley]

Buy a Nikonos, and look at the water from below. On a less cynical and more practical note - try to keep some spontaneity and SPARKLE and REFLECTION in flowing water. Use your polarizing and grad filters for skeet shooting instead. It can be a delicate balancing act. Most of the flowing water pictures I see on forums are pretty darn stale stereotypes. The proper shutter speed is relative to the rate of flow itself, so never a constant recipe, and it's also a logistical problem in terms of adequate depth of field and so forth with larger format film. And yeah, the web is a miserable tool for trying to evaluate actual results in print. But just soooo many waterfall images I see on the web, and even in picture books, look way too similar to each other - same predictable strategies. And I really don't care if I start a pie fight stating that. It's true. Break some of the formulaic rules, please. Water should be magical, not just yet another predictable postcard.

[Pieter]

For me, the presence of reflections or highlights gives a good idea of "wet," whether it is water or a wet object such as a stone or other surface. Foam helps indicate moving water, not sure if it says"wet."

[Thad Gerheim]

Dang it, now you have me searching through my photos to see if I happen to have such an image. What do think? Maybe. I'll keep looking for a b&w.
hansonwaves(8870)04 copy by Thad Gerheim, on Flickr

[Maris Rusis]

Rockpool, Noosa National Park
Gelatin-silver photograph on Agfa Classic VC FB photographic paper, image size 16.3cm X 21.5cm, from a 4x5 Kodak Tmax 400 negative
exposed in a Tachihara 45GF field view camera fitted with a Schneider Super Angulon 90mm f8 lens.

When water shows a bright line edge meniscus it announces itself as fluid and perhaps, on a generous assessment, even wet.

[Thad Gerheim]

Rockpool, Noosa National Park
Gelatin-silver photograph on Agfa Classic VC FB photographic paper, image size 16.3cm X 21.5cm, from a 4x5 Kodak Tmax 400 negative
exposed in a Tachihara 45GF field view camera fitted with a Schneider Super Angulon 90mm f8 lens.

When water shows a bright line edge meniscus it announces itself as fluid and perhaps, on a generous assessment, even wet.

Good one!