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 a 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.

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 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.

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