Light: The Language of Photography: Bubbles

Another very experimental shoot.

The science behind it was the difficult part.

I faced several issues - None of which related to the photography:

• Bubble mixture
• Bubble size
• Bubble longevity
• Planetary Patterns.

My approach was to take the simplest way forward.

The initial equipment was:

• Canon 5DsR with 28-135 Sigma Macro Lens with various extension tubes
• Tripod
• Two LED lights
• Several bottles of children’s bubble mixture…

The first issue was the bubble mixture. Commercial (as in, sold in ASDA, TESCO, etc.) is not designed for photography. Too many small bubbles are produced, that “pop” way too quickly. Working without an assistant to continually blow new ones, there was simply insufficient time to blow, focus (Bearing in mind the tiny depth of field involved with Macro) and shoot. Nor was the size large enough to get a good Macro image of. Time for Mr Google to step in.
From various sources, I approached the bubble mixture issue. I tried baking soda in the mix, adding generic washing up liquid into it, etc., before coming up with a solution of the bubble solution, mixed with glycerine. The ONE mistake I made with this (And I was only recently made aware of this) was that I did not allow the “mixture” to cure. Apparently, you need to leave this to cure for 24-36 hours. HOPEFULLY, I will re-shoot with the appropriate curing period later, but time constraints meant that what I present is what I shot on the day.
The "Rig" I used is shown below. This shows the rig, using the earlier bubble mix. which produced smaller bubbles, and which "popped" quicker..