Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine February 2018 | Page 24

22
Explore | Masterclass
The full circles of colour
often resemble fabulous
psychedelic planets in
a starless sky. At other
times it’s like looking
through a microscope.
Wave
As the dishwater soap bubbles burst very
quickly, I went out and bought a small bottle
of bubble mixture with a plastic wand
(basically, a ring with a handle) for blowing
bubbles, although for my purposes the soap
would remain as a flat film. The inner circle
that contains the soap measures 18mm.
I stood the wand upright, loaded with
the liquid, and began to take photos
through a macro lens.
The colourful patterns in the thin film of
liquid can be easily bleached out by flash.
I found that any soap will create patterns
but undiluted shampoo or washing-up liquid
is best. The thicker the better because the
film in the wand takes longer to burst.
Scientifically speaking (although I hasten
to add that I am no scientist!), soap films
consist of the colours and patterns arising
naturally from the interference of reflected
light rays from the front and rear surface
of a thin film of soap held in a frame. The full circles of colour often resemble
fabulous psychedelic planets in a starless
sky. At other times it’s like looking through
a microscope. It’s easy to imagine the
patterns as strange cellular life forms.
As the first fascinating swirls subside,
many pseudo micro-organisms, shimmering
with vivid colour, rise from the bottom
and wriggle their way to the top where
they dissolve.
I discovered that, for me, a simple
anglepoise table lamp standing next to
the camera and directed at the soap was
the best lighting, and I could also see exactly
what the resulting photograph would be like. As the liquid is always moving and
changing in appearance, a fairly high
shutter speed is needed to freeze the action.
The patterns only show up through the
lens when the wand is tilted at an angle.