Soap bubbles, the childhood pastime. From as far back as many people can remember we have all encountered soap bubbles and marvelled at the beautiful colours swirling around in the thin layer. With the intent to capture the vivid colours that are seen and bring so much joy and wonderment. Soap bubble photography.
To be able to explore what soap bubble photography could offer I had to devise a method to create a stable ‘bubble’. Running around with a camera trying to capture a soap bubble before it bursts would not be the most ideal method to capture the colours. The method would also have to take into account the ability to light the surface in a controlled way because the colours are derived by the reflection of light on differing thicknesses of soap film. As an example, the golden yellow is thinner than the blue.
I had initially explored creating a frame with plastic tubes or straws. I found that all stocks had dried up after the ban on the sale of plastic straws. The idea of disposable pens glued together was the first idea I tried. The results provided a framed sheet of bubble mixture so the concept worked. To improve the setup I recreated it in waxed paper straws with the addition of extra beams to support the frame so that it did not need to be held.
Lighting from above with the camera in front proved successful for getting images.
This produced some images that I was exceptionally pleased with, but it transpired that the method produced repetitive images. All very similar to each other. Gravity pulls the soap film down the constructed frame, and it is the relative thickness of the film where the colour comes from. After 100’s of images all similar, I abandoned the process for the time being. It will never create a collection of images with any real variation.
Other aspects that I am acutely aware of is that I am working on a flat plane. A soap bubble has a curved surface. This curvature would help improve variation to the images. Also working in close proximity to the sheet of the film provides a limited depth of field.
