How It Was Done: Pink Bubble

Yet another “How it was done” post…This time for my entry in the Canon Photo5 competition under the brief “bubblegum portrait”

This was my entry… Just incase you missed it 🙂

Anyway the brief was…

Bubblegum/Portraiture

This brief has one rule:

Feature bubble gum in a portrait. How you or your subject use the bubble gum is up to you. If you need more gum, visit your friendly local convenience store.

Note: For this competition we’re defining a portrait as any shot where a person is the main subject.

Once again it seems simple enough….

I wanted to do something that was entirely pink but a real soft kinda pastel pink which would tie in with the colour of the bubble being blown.

After a couple of days thinking about it I kept coming back to the idea of someone blowing a bubble while being surrounded by bubbles… I know it seems like an obvious conclusion to make but I wanted it to be shot and lit super well which I hoped would make the concept stand out from any other entries which used a similar premise. Not that it worked out in the end after not making it to the finals and public voting…Not that I’m bitter or anything 🙂

So I scored a reasonable sized cardboard box from recycling at work went and bought close to 100 pink balloons and 1 pink (very pink) wig.

For once Amanda was pretty stoked to be in the photo since she liked bubblegum anyway.

Using my 2 500W Electra Studio Lights both pointed at the ceiling (one of the few ways I can use them to get a softer light since they only have full and half power) I put the box in the middle of the room with a pink piece of material over it (with 2 daughters there never seems to be a shortage of pink material around) and got Amanda to lie with the head and shoulders in it.

The light was metered at f11 at 125th of a second using ISO 200.

Amanda spent quite a bit of time on the makeup which needed to be pretty thick due to the close nature of the shot… I think she did a pretty darn good job of getting what I wanted from what I told her.

Not a particularly flattering image but you get the idea how much went into it

Game on!

I ended up only blowing up about 25 Balloons and after Amanda lay in the box they were arranged around her head to make it look like she was entirely surrounded by pink bubbles.

Anyway this is how the set looked…

Again I love how budget my studio is 🙂

So after a lot of false starts and misblown bubbles we started to hit our stride… To get the angle I wanted I needed to be directly above her which required me standing on a chair and at some stages of the shoot standing on 2 chairs, which when 1 moved I nearly did some serious damage to my groin… mental note to self: when standing on 2 chairs always make sure they are well anchored.

The angle ment that you can see me taking the photo quite clearly in Amanda’s eyes

Me on 1 Chair

Me on 2 chairs

Anyway here goes some more shots that didn’t make it but that I still liked… Enjoy… Oh and if you don’t hear from me again Amanda has killed me for putting up more photos 🙂 Dont call the police it’s just the risk I take 🙂 and the girls need at least 1 parent.

Note to Amanda: Dont breath in through your nose when blowing bubble 🙂

Nikon D70s, 50mm f1.8, 200 ISO.

27/11/2010 | Categories: Experimental, How Stuff Was Done, Studio | Tags: 50mm, bubble, Bubblegum, bubblegum Portrait, Canon Photo5, d70s, Dark Halide, digital, How Stuff Was Done, How to, Nikon, photo, Photo5, photography, Pink, portrait, Simon Burrow, wellington | 7 Comments