Kelly at “Shutterbug Diary” commented on my Photo Experimenting 1, giving me a link to a different video saying I might find it interesting. She was right. (Thanks, Kelly.)
Video 1: Oil+Water+Soap (Add soap will make it easier, it said at one point.)
(It took me many tries, I have to tell you.)
My experience:
1. When I watched the video, I didn’t realize how small those bubbles were. I was shock when I saw the real thing. 😉
2. The direction of the light is more crucial than I thought. After failing for several times, I finally changed where I placed the flashlight, and that did the trick. For me, anyway.
3. I tried to manually combine several small bubbles into a bigger one, and wasn’t very successful. My guess is that I might add a little too much of the soap.
4. The color was a nice surprise. I had an orange color place-mat under the glass.
5. I did darken the left top corner to erase the company name for the glassware.
Video 2: Oil+water
After watching one video, you will start seeing similar videos popping up. The difference between this one and the previous one is that it doesn’t add soap.
My experience:
1. It’s easier this time since I kind of know where the flash light should be.
2. This, actually, is the result I had expected from previous experience.
3. Again, I used a household flashlight… because I was lazy.
Video 3: Rain-X and water
This is another video that popped up on my pc. Mark Wallace, actually, is the first photographer whose video I subscribed. His teaching style is straight-to-the-point, which I appreciate a lot. In this case, I would recommend to click the photo to see a bigger version of it.
My experience:
1. I had a hard time to get this work. I, actually, went back to watch his video again. F22, he said.
2. After I switched to speed-light, not using my trustful flashlight, I finally made some progress.
3. Rain-x makes it easier to hand shape water droplets.
Video 4: Frozen Bubbles (water, corn syrup, sugar, dish soap)
After having a few extreme cold days, frozen-bubbles videos started popping up. I thought to myself: I can’t change the weather; I may as well take advantage of it. While waiting for a warmer day to go to a store to get corn syrup, I saw Kelly post a photo of a frozen bubble, which I liked a lot.
It should look better, I thought. My heart wanted to keep trying, but my hands wanted to quit. My husband said, “Why don’t you do it in the garage?”
My experience:
1. Straw worked better.
2. Even a tiny wind could break those bubbles. I thought it was a pretty calm day, but, still, I had to move to a corner of the house to block almost-not-there wind.
3. Garage worked (no wind), but since it’s warmer, it took longer.
4. It still can be better; Winter is not over yet 😉
Thanks for visiting my blog.
HHC Blog 
I always like it when you experiment. Wonderful photos. You should make them bigger. 😀
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Thanks, Cee. You are right! I should make them bigger. I used to post bigger size photos. Recently, I don’t know why, I worry about space. It doesn’t make sense to me either 😉
We can run out of space, right? What do we do then? I see people start another blog using a different name. I wonder if I should start deleting old post/photo… or wait until it happens.. Oh well…
Have a great evening.
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What is the size of your photos. I save mine for my blog and they are usually less than 300kb. I’ve had my blog for 4 years or 5 years and only have used 20%. I save them no bigger than 1200 pixels on the longest side.
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Good morning, Cee. I always saved my photo to medium “quality”; I thought that was good enough to keep it small. I just checked — OMG, the size is from 700 KB to 3000. If I save the longer side as 1200 pixels, and medium “quality”, the size would be quite low, in one case 99. From now on, I will save all photos to 1200 pixels (longer side). THANK YOU SO MUCH, Cee!!!
How do you check the % of the space you have used?
Have a wonderful day.
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If you use your dashboard it should be listed under the “at a glance” section (Bottom right on mine, but I know you can move the sections around). From the reader, you can get to the Dashboard by scrolling down the right menu bar and click on WP Admin.
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You are my hero of the day, Cee. It took me a while to find it, but I did! 27%! I guess I don’t have to worry about it for a while, and I definitely will resize to 1200 pixels from now on. Thank you so much!
Have a great day! (Can you read how happy I am? 😉
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I like when you experiment, too! The photos are fascinating, Helen.
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Thank you, Lois. I like it, too. It’s fun to try easy ones. Ha. (Even easy one took me a while. 😉
Good night.
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This is wonderful. Good for you for trying something new!
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Thanks, Dawn. I always like to try new things. Hope it will last for a long while. Ha.
Good night.
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These are great! I like the family of frozen bubbles. And I totally see the reflection of the flower when I enlarged the picture 😊 Thanks for the tips! I’ll see if I can tackle this this weekend 😊 Have a fabulous day!
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Thank you, Kelly. I had a lot of fun. It brought me back to the time I was a programmer. Debug. Think. Debug. Think harder. Ha. It’s quite a reward when I finally figured out how 😉
Good night.
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What a wonderful experience. It doesn’t look easy at all. Lighting probably is crucial for the result. 🙂
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Thank you, Amy. Lighting is crucial — you got that right. After figuring out where the light should be, I had better luck with the rest. 😉
Good night. (Snow in your area?)
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No snow, some light freezing rain, very cold for us. May be not as cold as where you are. 🙂
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Freezing rain is worse. Drive carefully! It’s 39 degree now – heat wave 😉 We are very pleased!
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It is worse! Luckily it didn’t last long at all, and all schools and businesses … were closed. 🙂
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Wonderful experiments. I love the reflection of the flower in the raindrops.
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Thank you, Marie. I hope you have time watching Mark Wallace’s video. I think you will like it as much as I do. 😉 I hope.
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Superb work Helen, as usual, we learn a lot whenever you experiment! The 3rd experiment is my favourite there are many possibilities of putting different objects in the background! 🙂
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Thank you, Raj. The 3rd is my favorite, too. But watch out, it’s easy to addict to this. I had tried 3 different objects and still have several that I would like to do. Ha.
Good night.
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Wonderful experiment Helen!!!
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Thank you, Paulo. Your encouragements motivate me!
Have a great day.
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I like winter themes as well, especially something related to ice, such as frost flowers on window, frozen waterfalls, etc. I am planning to take some pictures of Minihaha fall within a few weeks, I heard it has been frozen. Want to join me?
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I like your ski photos!
I saw a photo of Minihaha fall recently; I don’t remember where (FB, probably.) It was frozen solid. Very amazing. I was thinking of going there to take a look, but it was too cold at that time. We have several warm days now. Do you think it will stay frozen? For sure, it will be very slippery.
I would love to go with you, but life is a little more complicated when you have two photographers living in the same house 😉 Let me know when you are going. Who knows?
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Love your experiments, Helen! Thank you for doing and posting!
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Thanks, AC. There are so many fun videos online; it’s quite addicting and I am weak. Ha.
Have a great day.
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The third one is like a small miracle. 🙂 🙂 I should take notice of your conversation with Cee. I like bigger photos but I don’t resize so I’ve used gallons of space and had to buy more. That’s what happens when you’re an idiot.
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Hi Jo – had to chime in here – and good for u for knowing what you want – and I wanted to add that I learned a lesson by using too small of pics – details were missed and beauty lost – so there is a fine line to too small – eh?
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Thank you, Jo and Yvette. There is one other reason to post lower quality (smaller) photo — if someone wants to “borrow” it without asking, at least you are still owing a better copy. (I am not sure how true this is, but it sounds right 😉
Yvette is right though. I remember I was a little confused with one of Raj’s comments, but after I took another looked at the photo, I totally agreed with him. The photo was too small, so some detail was missing. If you click the photo to see a bigger version, you would be able to see those missing details. But some photo seem not affected by size — I haven’t figured this out yet. It’s probably a good idea to make two sizes and compare. yes?
Thank you to both of you. Have a great evening.
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🙂 🙂
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How fun, helen -the photos are so fun – and I am looking forward to watching the videos and will be back to do that in a few
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Thanks, Yvette. I particularly like Mark Wallace’s video… if you only have time to watch one…
Have a great evening.
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I will add it to my list and keep you posted
🙂
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and helen – I also wanted to chime in once more on the space thing (even though at 27% you are not even close to using your allotted amount)
but when and if you do – it is not that much more money to buy more space – just a few bucks every month – just FYI
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Thanks, Yvette. Your info helps!!! 😉 I remember some blogger ran into this problem and had to stop using the original blog and start a new blog.It doesn’t sound fun at all 😉
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well I know a few folks that have done it (for space) and it was smooth – they also keep their blogs linked (or try to) so if someone lands on a homepage they can find them thru active links –
and sometimes it provides a fresh start – and that can have pros and cons
I started a new blog (the in the zone one) but it was to branch off because my original blog was started to share lit (poems and stories) and teen learning stuff – (really) and so I thought it might be good to start fresh – but then ended up back and realized that the beauty of a blog is that it can evolve and change – it will! and so it is okay if I evolve and keep the same address – people can make their own choice on coming and going – ya know
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Thank you, Yvette for sharing your experience. I like this blogging community, because people like you are willing to share their experiences selflessly! THANK YOU!
Have a great evening.
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Well done.
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Thank you, Sally.
Have a great evening.
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Fun project!
I do love the oil -water and frozen bubbles! creative!
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How cool! Looks like fun .. and great images too
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