It seems that so many photo ideas lately have been sparked by this horrible virus. I’d rather find inspiration in other things, but this is where we live right now.
This was a deceptively tricky shot to make, which surprised me. Here were the steps:
- Build a jig that would hold up the soap and allow unobstructed lighting from below (three nails sticking up through a board, nails and board spray-painted black, see snapshot at right).
- Work out the lighting so the soap glowed properly (main light from the side, kicker aimed up from below).
- Shoot an 8-image focus stack of the soap all by itself (this was the simple part).
- Shoot the bubbles (about 20 shots and harder than you might think because I had to lather up the bar of soap until the bubbles were just right, and then run over and place the bar back on the nails. I had to get Karen to trigger the camera, because my hands were too lathered up to operate the controls)
- Shoot the water running off (which meant changing both the angle of the bar, and the lighting setup; about 30 shots made to get enough to work with).
- Post-process the whole mess (the easy part)
Here is the Flickr version.
So, tough shot, but simple principle: wash your hands a lot, everyone!
Meta: Pentax K-3, 100mm f/2.8 lens at various apertures from f/6.3 to f/16, ISO 100–400, 1/160th second, multiple flashes with various flash durations; about 15 images composited in the end, lather, shoot, rinse, repeat
