I once heard a quote that stuck with me: “Fail with success.”
Sounds a little backward, right? But this photo — this glorious, splashy image of a strawberry dive-bombing into a spoonful of milk — is the perfect example.
Because I failed. A lot. Like… a lot a lot.
I ruined at least two dozen strawberries. Milk ended up everywhere — the spoon, the counter, the floor, my face. The first photo didn’t even have a strawberry in it. I missed the timing so badly, you’d think I was aiming for a different dairy product altogether.
But every failed attempt taught me something. Composition. Timing. Lighting. Splash trajectory (not an exact science, by the way). And with each adjustment, I got a little closer to the image I had envisioned — a bright red strawberry caught mid-splash, suspended above a bold blue background like it was starring in its own breakfast commercial.
Here’s how the madness went down:
My vision was simple: strawberry. spoon. milk. splash. blue. Art, right? I mounted my camera on a tripod with a 100mm macro lens and clamped a kitchen spoon to a boom arm. A quick test shot told me what I already feared — this was going to be a mess.
Manual focus, f/8 for depth, ISO 100, and a shutter speed of 1/200 to kill ambient light. The room was basically black without flash — perfect. Because in shots like this, it’s the flash that freezes the motion, not the shutter. At 1/16 power, my 580EXII Speedlite gives a flash duration of 1/15,000 of a second — fast enough to freeze even the most rebellious berry.
I added a shoot-through umbrella to camera left, just a foot away. Camera right got a simple bounce from a piece of white foam core to soften the shadows on the strawberry’s leafy crown. (Foam core: $3 at the office store. Life-changing.)
But something was missing.
The background — a plain white wall — was fine. But “fine” is not why I nearly destroyed my bedroom. I wanted color. So I added a second flash aimed at the wall, gelled with Rosco #80 Primary Blue. Boom. Blue wall. Way better.
Then came the action.
Fill the spoon with milk. Balance the strawberry. Deep breath. Drop. Click.
Miss.
Repeat.
Miss again.
Repeat.
Nail it…? Almost.
After two days of trial and error (and one milk-drenched golden retriever), I finally caught the shot. Timing, light, splash, color — it all came together. And that was the moment I realized I had failed… with success.
Moral of the story? Don’t give up when the strawberry hits the floor instead of the spoon. Don’t be afraid to make a mess. Don’t quit just because it’s frustrating. Creativity is rarely clean or convenient — but when it works, it’s pure magic.
And bonus tip: always cover your table in plastic first.
Another kitchen-table experiment: An Apple a Day, where a borrowed ironing board becomes a studio.
Same kitchen table, different dessert: The Frosting Made Me Do It.
Print orders are paused while I move to Florida. You can still look at Strawberry Milk in the shop, and if you’d like an email when I’m open again, send me a note and I’ll let you know as soon as it’s back.