Last week I organised another camera club workshop, this time on the theme of macro, close-up and still life. One of the subjects I wanted to try was photographing bubbles:
There were 5 different set-ups that members brought along. I used a black background on my home-made close-up table. I started off with some still life that I wasn’t happy with (how do you make a piece of wood ‘interesting’?) Lighting was by 2 old manual flashguns to either side.
The above photo was one of the first I took of the bubbles. Looking at the camera’s LCD display I saw the technique has potential. The most difficult thing to do was get the bubbles in the right place, both the plane of focus and the location within the image.
I found that getting more bubbles into the image helps give a better image.
And concentrating on a single large bubble I found to be a good option as well:
But with this image, using some reflectors spoilt the image. Interestingly, I wasn’t using a green light, perhaps this is refraction causing the colours to split.
I think the idea has possibilities…