Studio Bubbles

[Tunbridge]

Yesterday we decided to have some fun with bubbles in the home studio with the kids. Other than the problems caused with a slippy floor from the bubble mix the lighting was a bit tricky, however I'm reasonably happy with the results.

The main lighting was from a gridded 120cm octobox, high, camera left – which is also where my glamorous assistance was stood on a chair blowing the bubbles from. Camera right was a gridded 120 x 30cm strip box , mounted horizontally at head height to act as a hair light. Finally a white reflective umbrella was positioned behind the camera to provide a little front fill. I usually just use a honeycomb and reflector for the highlight but as the kids weren't staying in the same point I figured this would have been too hit and miss.

Getting the lighting right is one thing but ultimately these shots just required a bit of luck to catch the moment when the kids have the right expression on their faces at exactly the moment the bubbles are in an astatically pleasing position. I could of cause of just photoshopped the bubbles where I wanted them but that would be cheating! Only minor LR4 tweaks.

Any comment gratefully received.

1.) 2014_12_27-StudioBubbles-240 by Tunbridge Wells, on Flickr

2.) 2014_12_27-StudioBubbles-213 by Tunbridge Wells, on Flickr

3.) 2014_12_27-StudioBubbles-185 by Tunbridge Wells, on Flickr

4.) 2014_12_27-StudioBubbles-135 by Tunbridge Wells, on Flickr

5.) 2014_12_27-StudioBubbles-080 by Tunbridge Wells, on Flickr

6.) 2014_12_27-StudioBubbles-037 by Tunbridge Wells, on Flickr

 

[cargo]

Hi Stephen looks like you had a lot of fun shooting these

I must confess I am not of photographer and have not taken photos like this before but on reading the description (which is great you included) I was surprised that you used 3 lights as I would have thought they would be much brighter but I guess you controled it well.
Last one is bestest for me as your girls hair is much brighter and stands out from the background.

Gaz

 

[sunnyside_up]

Nice job on lighting the bubbles... not as easy as one might think! Well done! I'm with Gary, the last one is the best one for me, it's the one that ticks the most boxes.

 

[Tunbridge]

Hi Stephen looks like you had a lot of fun shooting these

I must confess I am not of photographer and have not taken photos like this before but on reading the description (which is great you included) I was surprised that you used 3 lights as I would have thought they would be much brighter but I guess you controled it well.
Last one is bestest for me as your girls hair is much brighter and stands out from the background.

Gaz

Thanks it was fun.

The number of lights won't necessarily make it brighter as it is more dependent on their position and the power, you can turn the outputs right down. The art is in balancing the amount of light from each and getting it the light your subject in the way you want it to. You can tell the position and shape of the lights by looking at the reflections, the bubbles in the first photo are a good example but distorted by the shape of the bubble to an extent.

As you point out, the separation created by the light falling on the hair in the last photo is better than some of the others. The biggest problem with hair lights and children is that the child moves. Normally I'd have used a honeycomb on a standard reflector but that just doesn't work on a moving target!

 

[Tunbridge]

Nice job on lighting the bubbles... not as easy as one might think! Well done! I'm with Gary, the last one is the best one for me, it's the one that ticks the most boxes.

Thanks, not sure if it was harder to light the bubbles or get them to go into the right place! Think I shot about 350 frames to get these 6! Think next time it might be easier with one of those bubble machines you can get!