In 2008 I saw a photo of a soap bubble in a photo magazine. The bubble was very colorful, but the article didn’t say how the photo was made. I had to find out. This was the beginning of my Soap Bubble Project.

First I had to learn how to make a bubble that lasted two or more minutes, giving me time to photograph it. I found this recipe on the web.

1 cup of distilled water, 2 table spoons of Dawn or Joy dish soap, and 1 table spoonful of vegetable glycerin. This worked.

When I looked at the soap bubble I could see that the colors and pattern were constantly moving. That told me I needed a flash to freeze the motion.

Now for the hard part, how to light the bubble so you can see the bright colors. The colors are caused by "Thin film interference", When light is reflected from both sides of the bubble film, it creates interference patterns. The varying colors are due to the varying thickness of the film. That’s why The bubbles change so much as they age.

This picture consists of 2 bubbles composited in Photoshop. EXIF data for both photos is,
Nikon D80, Nikon 105mm f/2.8 macro, ISO 200, 1/200 sec. @ f/22.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is a drawing of my setup.