In these days of heavy hand-washing, a recent household chore led to a fun soap bubble shoot. No, not THAT kind of shoot…
After filling some of the soap dispensers in our house, I rinsed out the bulk container and left it draining in the sink. When I went back to take it out to the recycling bin, I noticed a network of bubbles had formed inside. I thought, “Aha! Here’s a shoot I can do without leaving the house!”
I headed down to my workshop in the basement, that years ago I’d turned into a small product studio (very fancy – two sawhorses with a sheet of plywood and a roll of black seamless background paper draped over it). This is where I photograph cameras, lenses, cards, readers, tripods, lights, etc. for stories or classes I’m teaching. Hanging above it is an old studio strobe mounted inside an even older softbox, which creates nice light for that sort of photography. So I took that soap bottle down to the workshop/studio, fired up the light and started playing.
My workshop studio, with all the props I needed for this high-tech shoot.
I knew I was going to shoot closeups, so grabbed my 105mm Nikkor Micro and put it on my brand new Nikon D780. Since I was using flash, I hand-held the camera, rather than putting it on the tripod (with flash I wouldn’t have to worry about blur from camera movement). That made it much easier to move around, changing angles and distance. As I started shooting, I was pleasantly surprised to see rainbow colors being reflected off the surfaces of some of the bubbles. There’s a techy explanation for this, but I’ll just call it “pretty.”
I found the lines and reflections mesmerizing. What made it challenging was that I couldn’t see the colors until I shot the photo and looked at the LCD. I wanted to use the D780 because I’d just bought it, but one of my Z cameras would have made this easier, as I could have previewed the image without taking the camera down from my eye and losing my position. Nikon D780, Manual, exposure Natural Auto white balance, ISO 320, 1/50 at f/9, Nikkor VR 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED lens.
After a few dozen frames with the black background, I decided to try adding some color. Sitting nearby on a shelf were some old boxes of Kodak and Fuji film, so yellow and green became the colors I played with by placing them behind the bottle. If anybody’s looking to buy old film, drop me a note 🙂
Here you can see the color that was added by placing the green Fuji film box behind the bottle. Nikon D780, Manual exposure, Natural Auto white balance, ISO 320, 1/200 at f/13, Nikkor VR 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED lens.
It was a fun little exercise, killed an hour, and more importantly, gave me a chance to do some photography. I’ll be paying closer attention to household chores over the next couple of weeks, looking for my next opportunity. My wife is fully behind this new project!
NOTE: you could probably get the same effect using sunlight, placing the bottle near a window or taking it outside. Putting a piece of black cloth, or cardboard, behind it would help the bubbles stand out.
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The ribbing on the side of the bottle, there to make it easier to hold, also played a part in some of the photos. Nikon D780, Manual, exposure Natural Auto white balance, ISO 320, 1/50 at f/9, Nikkor VR 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED lens.