Night Bubbles: The Golden Orb / Day Bubbles

Even if we try
Even if we try
To make ourselves alright
To mend our severed lives
All the rivers rage
Descend upon the stage
Running melodies
I lift my voice to sing
~Night Beds, Even If We Try


It was a day that never got very warm. It was minus 2 on our thermometer around 8 a.m.; it might have been a degree or two colder than that at dawn. If you are a frozen bubble lover, THESE ARE THE DAYS!!!! I made frozen bubbles at 6 degrees in the morning in our backyard (see extras for one of my best shots). I made frozen bubbles on my walk with a tiny to-go set of bubble mix in mid-day at 11 degrees. 

And I made my third and final bubble set of the day between 7:30 and 8 p.m., at about 9 degrees, with winds at 2 mph. I had been trawling the Internet for frozen bubble pics, and I found these inspiring ones from a night shoot by Bubbling With Joy, a lady I follow on Instagram. Let's just say that I was enthused and inspired to try my hand a second time. My first night-time frozen bubble shoot may be found here.

The night-time photo shoot, of course, stole the show! I took along:
camera (with a good battery in it and an extra)
monopod  (don't forget to wipe snow off bottom when done)
2 sets of bubble mix and a wand, in a plastic container
four LED tea light candles, in left coat pocket* (one did not work)
new headlamp on my head
old headlamp in left pocket*, just in case
hand warmer, turned on, in right pocket*

In my morning photo shoot, I had actually done a strange thing: I saw one of the skulls with antlers sitting at the back of the yard with snow on it, and I brushed the snow off it and used it to blow bubbles onto. I am here to report that blowing bubbles AROUND antlers is a hard, hard thing to do. 

I have not shared any of the skull bubble photos and I may not. They were just strange, and might give credence to my husband's concern that the neighbors may think that I am conducting satanic rituals in the yard. But I digress. (At night time, I skipped working with the skull for another simple reason: there was no place safe to put the LED candles around the skull that they wouldn't get snow on them, which might have ruined them!)

Back to the night shoot. I placed my LED lights on a square parson's table and blew bubbles along the edge. My typical process is this:
Bundle up indoors, put headlamp on head, and turn it on.
Go outside, and put all of my stuff down.
Place the photo shoot items where I want them.
Take off glove.
Grab bubble wand, blow a bubble.
Wipe hand with paper towel.
Put glove back on.
Pick up camera and turn it on.
Shoot photos.
Rinse, lather, repeat.

Now, there is a BIG PROBLEM with this process at these low temps. The problem is that the crystallization process IS ALREADY HAPPENING WHILE YOU ARE PUTTING THAT GLOVE BACK ON!!!! I tried to get faster at it, but realized the gloves I'd brought (with some spare strings inside the fingers) were hampering my glove-putting-on speed. Slicker gloves next time! 

I also thought I'd like to have a shepherd's hook nearby with an LED lantern we use when camping out hanging on it for easy light. Heck, I might also like to feature a lantern - maybe one of my dad's fancy, snazzy railroad ones - with an LED light inside it in a night photo shoot!

I had my area all set up from earlier in the day but my chair didn't want to sit straight in uneven crunchy snow. That was a twist I didn't see coming. Also, I could have used more counter space - like tables - to put my camera and other items down. The table I usually use, the parson's table, was being used in the shoot itself! And the other little table was snow-covered and still had 13 splurks of bubble mix on it from a late afternoon shoot the other day (see that day's extra photo). An additional flat plastic tray or two may have been helpful to sit stuff on in the snow.

In the end, I lasted about 10 to 15 minutes in the cold. I took about 60 photos, give or take. Some ended up blurry, and I deleted them. Some ended up amazing, like this one, which looked like a golden orb to me. (My husband says it looks like sunrise over Venus; a friend says she sees people dancing in it!) My last bubble, it was my biggest and best, and really glowed. I put a tea lamp behind it to show us the patterns on the surface. That worked really well.

It felt very meaningful and strange to be lighting candles in our yard in the darkness. I think lighting a candle is a hopeful act, an act of rebellion against the darkness. And so I light these candles, with hope. I light them for those who are struggling. I light them for the ones who are fighting battles they may not win. I send my love across the miles, and through the darkness, like an arrow swift and true, for the darkness cannot defeat the lovers of the light. Never could. Never will.

It's time for songs, and I had so many thoughts about songs that I have more than two. First, here is Madonna, with Spanish Eyes. Second, here is Neil Diamond, with Thank the Lord for the NIght Time. And finally, here is Night Beds, with Even If We Try. A verse from the third and last song appears above.

As always, here is a link to my frozen bubble tips.

*It seems that one of my super powers is to put important or breakable things in my coat pockets, then sit down on the stairs on my way into or out of the house and SQUASH those things. So be warned. If you put stuff in your pockets, DO NOT SIT ON THEM, kthxbye.