“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” — Leo Tolstoy
My photographic journey is yet to take me to Iceland or the game parks of Namibia. In my Lightroom folders, you won’t find pics of Cuban street hawkers, Tokyo nightlife or European Renaissance architecture. There’s no sun-bleached photos of palm trees or white sand Caribbean beaches. No vintage phone booths or two-decker buses. In fact, my cameras have yet to travel on a boat, plane or bus. They’ve never even felt the worn-down vinyl of a lowly yellow taxicab.
For better or worse, almost all my pictures have been taken within a one-kilometer radius of my home in London, Ontario. This means I’ve spent hundreds of hours photographing the same spots, mainly my backyard, the local park and my son’s elementary school playground. I guess I’ve taken the Emily Dickinson approach to photography (the poet never left her small town).
For example, I have over fifty shots of the same swing set. Another fifty of a chain-link fence bordering a basketball court. Don’t ask how much film I’ve wasted on the birdbath outside my kitchen window or on the morning sun hitting the front porch. It’s enough to leave any travel photographer wincing in pain. Indeed, I may wait weeks for something novel or noteworthy to appear, like someone with an eccentric hat or bright-coloured birthday balloon.
So, you can imagine my excitement when my wife and son came home the other day with a bubble gun. This was the moment I’d been waiting for all summer, something to enliven the backyard apart from a few cherry tomatoes and an ageing chipmunk. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a high-end, battery-powered bubble gun. It was one of those cheap mechanical dollar-store models, which require the user to dip the nose in soapy water after each try.
Still, I had a plan. This was going to my day to capture a big ass bubble on black and white film, no matter the quality of the equipment. I gave my seven-year-old son, Kipling, a five-dollar bill for one hour of complain-free cooperation and then got to work. First, I tried getting him to load the gun and make bubbles. But he wasn’t approaching the task with the kind of seriousness I was looking for. Bubbles were going in all directions and most of them were too small for analog excellence.
I then relieved Kipling from his bubble making duties and took it upon myself to operate both the gun and the camera. I gave Kip simple instructions: “Follow the bubble with your face and look profound!” From there on, I’d load the gun, slowly make a large bubble with a gentle teasing of the trigger, drop the gun and grab the camera, trying to get the scene into focus as quickly as possible. The problem was that big bubbles sink faster than I can frame and focus.
I went through two rolls of TMax 400 chasing after bubbles that afternoon with my Leica M6 and Summicron-M 50 f/2. Most of the shots were atrocious, but about halfway through the first roll the soapsuds aligned creating the kind of magic I was striving for. It’s far cry from an Icelandic seascape with mountains and icebergs, but on a hot, humdrum day in Southwestern Ontario, it was certainly worth cost of two boxes of Kodak Professional Film.
If you are interested in seeing more of my images, I regularly post to Lomography and Leica Fotografie International. I can also be found on Instagram.
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David James on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
Comment posted: 08/10/2024
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Miguel Mendez on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
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Steve Kotajarvi on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
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rd on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
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Dan M on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
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Chris on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
Comment posted: 08/10/2024
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Gary Smith on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
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Jukka Reimola on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
Comment posted: 08/10/2024
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Tony Warren on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
Comment posted: 08/10/2024
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Jeffery Luhn on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
Comment posted: 09/10/2024
Comment posted: 09/10/2024
David Dutchison on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
Comment posted: 09/10/2024
That's a once in a lifetime shot (may you take many more!), and sharpness is the least of its virtues.
Comment posted: 09/10/2024
Geoff Chaplin on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
Comment posted: 09/10/2024
Comment posted: 09/10/2024
Rich on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
Comment posted: 09/10/2024
(Although I wonder if "bubbles" and "serious" should be in the same sentence! )
Comment posted: 09/10/2024
Cem Eren on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
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Bill Brown on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
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Steviemac on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
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Nathan S on Breaking the Bank for a Bubble — A One-Shot Story
Comment posted: 10/10/2024
Comment posted: 10/10/2024