TicTacToe
These bubbles appeared on our pool and the cross formed from the pergola above.
Apr, 2015Views
299
Likes
Awards
Action Award
Top Choice
Outstanding Creativity
Peer Award
Superb Composition
Absolute Masterpiece
Magnificent Capture
Top Ranks
Top 10 rank
Top 20 rank
Top 20 rankTop 20 rank week 2Top 20 rank week 1
Categories
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Discover more photos See all
Behind The Lens
Location
These bubbles had formed on the top of our spa pool which is in the front yard of our house.Time
It was early one morning and I had just put some daily cleaning chemicals in the pool which in turn created these amazing shapes on the surface of the water. I knew the bubbles would disappear fast so it was a "right place, right time" capture.Lighting
The lighting was a cloudy/dull at the time, so I needed to increase the ISO up to 400 to make sure I got a fast enough shutter speed to hopefully prevent any blurring of the bubbles. The dullness of lighting was actually very welcome because it resulted in an image without glaring areas of over exposure.Equipment
My Canon 5D Mk II Camera, a Canon 24-105mm lens, a higher ISO of 400 and a steady hand.Inspiration
After I put the cleaning chemicals in, I was amazed at the bubbles that had formed on the top of the water, with their colours and shapes. That's when I rushed off to get my camera and when I came back to take the shot, I looked again and that's when I saw the cross of the pergola above in the water. Then it just came to me that what I was seeing was Noughts and Crosses :)Editing
Yes, as with fairly much any image you capture digitally, you always need to do a bit of processing in a programme like Lightroom or Photoshop. For this image, I took my RAW file and I started in Lightroom where I cropped the image first, increased the highlights slightly, reduced the noise that was created by the higher ISO, added a bit of saturation to bring out the wonderful colour in the bubbles and then used the Clarity option to sharpen the image, but did this carefully so as not to add more noise back into the image. Then finally, I opened it up in Photoshop to clone out all of the distracting spots and specks that had appeared on the water and were very obvious when I viewed the image on the screen.In my camera bag
I am a total "Canon Chick" apart from one Sigma lens and my camera bag contains the following: Canon EOS 5D MK II - Canon EOS 7D - Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L - Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L - Canon EF-S 10-22mm - Canon 60mm Macro - Sigma AF 120-400mm - Manfrotto Geared Head and Tripod along with a Polarising Filter and a Variable ND Filter.Feedback
My advice is to always be open to the beautiful images that surround us, in the most unlikely places and at the most unusual times. Like bubbles on the water in a pool, or the pretty buttons on a blouse you wear every day, or even the shoelaces that tie your shoes - everything around us has its own amazing story to tell and it's up to us to capture that moment to tell that story.
