Behind the Scenes

I'm trying to catch up with all my photo albums, and came across a 'behind the scenes' shot taken on 'Water a Plant' Day, a couple of weeks ago, which I've not shared yet.

I wanted real water coming out of the watering can, but there was no way to have Elin actually hold it when it had water in it, and it also wouldn't provide the pouring water as I wanted, because it would all run out well before I could take the picture. So, how to fake it??

I figured I could make it look like water was really coming out of the watering can, by pouring it through a straw positioned right behind Elin's watering can spout. But that meant taking two identical photos - one with the water, and one without, and checking the arc of the pouring water so that it would actually land in the plant - and then cloning the pouring water in afterwards when I processed the photo. So I set up the scene, and my tripod so I could shoot the exact same photo. Then I took some photos with Jan pouring water through the straw, and chose the best one...

Then I took the same, identical photo, but without the straw, and after I processed both photos,
I cloned the pouring water from the photo above, onto ​the photo without the pouring water, and cropped the scene to make for a better composition....and Elin was actually watering the plant!