The Many Worlds of Oil Bubbles

LaFoto · Mar 18, 2009

If only this had been initially my own idea! How I wish I were this creative. But it wasn't. I first heard about it through MissMia, who herself says she saw it on Adorama. But since it is about bubbles, and since bubbles are something akin to droplets, and since droplets gave me "droplet disease" twice in my life already (at least), it was clear I'd catch "oil bubble disease". So I had to create many different Oil Bubble Universes!

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

And my favourite one:
6.

Great fun creating these. Thanks MissMia for the idea!

timethief · Mar 18, 2009

Really very nice.
colors are very vibrant.
makes me want to give it a shot.

mrodgers · Mar 18, 2009

Super super cool! I love these.

KylePeterson · Mar 18, 2009

last one rocks! How exactly did you pull these off?

LaFoto · Mar 18, 2009

It is no secret.
I used a flat-bottomed glass bowl (actually a Pyrex rectangular thingy for baking things, making lasagne, such a thing), filled it with only so much water that it spread to all ends, set it up ont two upturned tall glasses very close to the back door through which the sun shone into the room, placed different bits of wrapping paper (for Christmas or birthday presents) underneath, set up the tripod, camera looking STRAIGHT down from there, the Sigma lens on in its "macro" settings (guarantees a very shallow DOF), set the camera to f5.6 (guarantees a REALLY shallow DOF), dripped some cooking oil into the water and fired away, focusing and focusing again to make sure the oil bubbles are in focus and not the background or something in between. Easy as that

:greenpbl: ... am I spreading a new virus?

Antarctican · Mar 18, 2009

*sniff* I definitely feel something coming on!

These are beautiful. The first and last ones are my faves. It sounds like these are fun to do and I hope to try it soon. Thanks for sharing your secrets (ie getting the dish up off the ground etc)

leighthal · Mar 18, 2009

....runs to look for a pyrex dish. Thanks for sharing!

MissMia · Mar 18, 2009

Great shots Corinna! I'm glad you took the idea and ran with it! :thumbup:

LaFoto · Mar 19, 2009

Oh, Christina, I must thank you for giving me the idea! YOU started it (just look at your lovely new avatar!). Without you, I'd never have come up with the idea on my own. I - unfortunately - am not this creative ... But let's spread the disease, as these are so much fun!

MissMia · Mar 19, 2009

Thanks Corinna! :hug:: Here is the original link from Adorama that started it all! I'm not this creative either. These are too much fun and I love seeing what results you get with different backgrounds.

LaFoto · Mar 19, 2009

Let's hope no one in the "photo jury" of the local paper has ever come across this technique and they'll all be wondering how I created that one "universe" (last photo here - to me it even has a 3-D effect, I wonder whether I'm the only one to see that, as if all the "planets", a-hem

, were drifting towards the red/orange "hole") - and let's hope they'll be simply "blown away" by it

... You don't enter anything to contests without wanting to win it, do you?

And yes, despite my resolve never to enter any more photos in their contest, I have decided to hand it in ... much later this month, more towards the end, but I will

.

polymoog · Mar 19, 2009

Those are incredible, nice work

LaFoto · May 24, 2009

Just to update the story on the photo composition of the local paper: I entered the last of the series here, but a blurry photo won in the end.
Which then was the last straw for me. They're not going to get any more of my pics.
Not that I think I should necessarily win such competitions. I'm not that conceited.
But it just showed me what "qualities" the so-called jury has when it comes to judging photo entries. To make a BLURRY photo Photo Of The Month (and not one where blurriness was an element of choice, but one where obviously something had gone wrong in the process of focussing or setting the aperture right or so) ...

Al-Wazeer · May 24, 2009

niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!
if i just had time to do it

!
so that's just cooking oil in water in Pyrex?

LaFoto · May 24, 2009

Yes, and the fact that the colourful background underneath was a bit further away (like I said: I had placed that flat-bottom glass bowl onto two upturned drinking glasses) and I made use of the very shallow DOF of my Sigma lens in the MACRO-position. That helped.