Hello! Glad you stopped by.

If you’ve taken an excursion through the Hippie Experiments website you might remember some mention of my obssessive stint in bubble photography. Well, let me entertain you with how my bubble photography came about.

I have some photography classess under my belt, from way back when. Before digital photography was a thing. I loved it! The class even included developing, so cool. I never really did anything with my new found photography education after the classes. Out of the blue a couple of years ago, in typical Hippie Ang fashion, I decided I wanted to play around with photography again. By this time, digital is out and advanced. Remember, I learned photography on a camera with a hamster wheel inside running things. The new fandagled contraptions didn’t deter me though. See, it is not on my radar to think “Hippie Ang you have no clue how to operate such things”. I purchased a digital camera with all the bells and whistles and began my experimenting.

It’s been a while, but I believe my inital set up was indoors due to it being winter. The older this hippie gets the less she likes the cold. I had set up a background with differnt props to use, prepared a bubble solution that makes lasting bubbles, added some lighting and got to shooting.

Back up a little. I believe I spent a few days on the internet searching how to use the camera that is way more advanced than my education or experience. What I learned first off is, bubbles are hard to focus on. What I learned second was bubble photography is fun! Even, when I would get frustrated with not knowing how to properly use the tools. The series of bubble photos taken in the set up background were taken in one session. That photo shoot had me photographing bubbles on my kitchen table in the middle of the night. I’m sure I had a smile on my face. I made a huge mess, gooey bubble juice everywhere, but I felt I had gotten some good shots. I was satisfied.

Wait, What? Now I have to learn Photoshop or Lightroom! Guess so. I am by no means a professional at any of this. Sure, I have improved over time. Sure, I could learn more if I took a class. The object is to have fun and learning is just a part of it. I don’t mind stumbling through at my own pace. I do get frustrated and have to walk away at times. Sometimes my experiments get the best of me and I just stop. Sometimes I revisit the idea. When I do, I usually am glad I did. The second time around is usually better. Other times the mangled experiment gets left to catch dust.

Throughout the indoor bubble session my props started to evolve. I was able to introduce smoke to the bubbles for some crazy cool effects. I was even able to capture a few items inside the bubbles. Aaaand my capture and editing skills started to improve.

That’s when I decided to take my bubble shoot outdoors. The weather must have been warming up. I remember heading to the local park with all my bubble experimenting gadgets. I set up in a low traffic corner by a river. then got down to bubble blowing and shooting. Once outdoors I hit another learning curve, it was very difficult to even find the bubbles in the viewfinder at first. Then, how do you focus when you’re not quite sure where your subject is going to end up. Lots and lots of photos later and I came up with some pretty gratifying shots! During this photo shoot, I became lost to the creative process. In my own little world, blowing bubbles by a river, throw down bubble wand and rapid fire photo shoot. I was clueless to my surroundings, but imagine my activity had to be a little confusing to the people walking past.

To finish off the session, I played with my editing skills that are continually in progress.

The wonderful bubbles have not found their way into my view finder for quite some time now. If you stop over on the Experiment page you might find some bubble photos not featured on this blog. Stay tuned, you never know when or where the bubbles might show up. The hippie’s have some adventures in the works!

Again, Thank You for visiting, I hope you have gained some joy through my creative chaos.

-Hippie Ang