Scavenger Hunt #33 – Reaction

While I used the previous Hunt to experiment with composites and story-telling, I wanted to go “back to basics” for this Hunt, and try to get maybe closer from my comfort zone, but also closer to pictures that feel like “me”. But, for the personal challenge, I shot everything with my 100mm macro lens!

Words that relate to an abstract concept or to movement, like “Reaction”, are the ones I fear most; but for this one the idea of a chemical reaction came to me very early on. One of the most straightforward (and safe!) chemical reactions that can be done with household items is to mix baking soda with vinegar: it bubbles! I took a significant amount of takes and I went through a lot of baking soda, but when I saw the crop of this image, I exclaimed “That’s the one!”. I find the bubble details exquisite and I really like the composition with the curve in the right corner.

A white powder on the left side of the picture reacting to a bunch of bubbles on the right side of the picture.
CameraPentax K-1 II
Lenssmc PENTAX-D FA MACRO 100mm F2.8 WR
Focal length100 mm
F-NumberF/8
Exposure time1/250 s
ISO200

I had to think hard on whether to leave a bit of the baking soda in the picture. On the one hand, it made the image slightly more obviously “on theme”; on the other hand, the picture was better without it. So I went for the pretty picture rather than for the clearer theme – to me, it was definitely the right choice.

The complete Scavenger album is available here: the Reaction album.

2 thoughts on “Scavenger Hunt #33 – Reaction

  1. I agree, leaving the baking soda out was a great choice! You still can clearly see it’s a reaction. Such a pretty picture! What is the reflection at the bottom? I liked that and thought it gave it a place for my eye to start looking.

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    1. Thank you Dianne! The reflection at the bottom is the reflection from the LED panel I was using to light the bubbles. It initially felt a bit distracting, but I ended up liking it 🙂

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