Liquid Sculptures: Dazzling Photographs of Falling Water

By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor | March 1, 2012 07:35am ET

Red Droplets

Three water droplets (two side-by-side and one from above) merge.

Water droplets collide against a white background. Reugels carefully times the droplets to collide just as his camera snaps an image.

A ring of water rises around a "double pillar" droplet.

Colored gels over the camera flash create amazing hues.

This photograph brings together four droplets - three as "pillars" and one from above.

The droplets collide in controlled ways, but create unexpected patterns.

Reugels developed the photographic technique after finding that water columns from two falling droplets leaned into one another.

A little milk or cream added to the water helps it catch the colored light.

Colliding droplets look like chocolate milk against a white background.

A purple collision stands out against a black backdrop.

Author Bio

Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor: Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science. She covers the world of human and animal behavior, as well as paleontology and other science topics. Stephanie has a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has ducked under a glacier in Switzerland and poked hot lava with a stick in Hawaii. Stephanie hails from East Tennessee, the global center for salamander diversity. Follow Stephanie on Google+.; Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor on

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