Stunning Bubbleography

Those who are on your iPhone a lot may have seen this image:



as it was the stock background for many iPhones.

A cursory glance at this image may lead one to believe this is an extraterrestrial planet; I too was mesmerized by this image, when I realized that this was actually the surface of a bubble shot at a close distance. As I alluded to in my previous posts, light shone on bubbles should theoretically have stunning results. In practice, however, most bubble photographs are unflattering and boring. This is because it is extremely tricky to shine a light on a bubble properly in order to capture its capricious colors.


I wanted to see if I could recreate an image such as the iPhone wallpaper (and potentially do it better) by capturing the vivid colors of bubbles and I ended up spending quite some time trying to figure out the most optimal and economical way to illuminate and photograph a bubble.


To light a bubble properly for the purpose of photographing, a large and broad light source must be used. One way of achieving this is by using a softbox, which is essentially a glorified lampshade that diffuses light evenly across its surface.


Unfortunately, professional softboxes are very expensive, so I decided to improvise and build my own.



First, I took a large cardboard box and lined the interior with aluminum foil to bounce the light around so that it is spread out evenly.






I then cut a hole the size of a lightbulb at the bottom of the box and found an old lamp to cannibalize by replacing the lampshade. The modification was successful, and franken-light was the result:




Finally, I took some translucent packing paper from a shoebox and covered the opening of the box to soften the light. The result is this: 

and the light now looks like this:

I created a platform using cup and containers in order for the bubbles to sit on as close to the light source as possible. I inflated a bubble and marveled at the sight, until I remembered that I still needed to share with the world the beauty of inflated soapy water.


To document this, I set up a camera with a macro lens (a lens used to take closeups) in order to hopefully capture the colors that I saw from illuminating a bubble at close range. I hung up some old t-shirts to create a black backdrop.

After lots of tweaking and experimenting, I was rewarded with these images, which were nothing short of astounding:

More images can be found here for your viewing pleasure: Google Drive

A video of a bubble dancing can be found here: Youtube



These images capture the essence of nature’s beauty (next post will be about this!); although the bubbles are evanescent, the swirling patterns and flowing colors on them are hypnotic. Numerous other phenomena in nature such as a peacock’s feathers or a beetle’s shell also exhibit the same iridescence.



In my next blog post, I will be explaining the science behind these psychedelic colors.