Tiny Bubbles and Small Moments

Last Friday night as I was coming out of the darkroom at 3 in the morning--I had been working on the last project--I noticed that the fountain in front of the art building was bubbling up from soap. It's a fairly frequent (at least once a year) prank/phenomenon that a group of students puts detergent or soap mix of some form into the fountain late at night so it bubbles over and the bubbles get blown across campus into the morning--which is a pretty magical event in itself, especially when its so early that the dew hasn't even dried from the grass and the birds are singing rather confused versions of their typical morning medleys. Of these events, I had never seen the fountain before it bubbles over--I must have gotten there within thirty minutes of them adding the mix. So, I just had to whip out my digital camera (which I just happened to have on me) and take pictures!


It would have been perfect if I'd had my tripod on me, as the lighting was (typically) awful and I needed to use a long exposure. I managed to deal with the hand shaking problem fairly well, though, obviously most of them are slightly burred, but at least it's not too bad. I would have gone back into the darkroom to borrow a tripod, but all the doors were locked from the outside and I really didn't want to call security to let me in. I'll admit that I was a little paranoid about security finding me on their evening checks and thinking that I had put the soap mix in the fountain. (I don't know if someone could actually get in trouble for it.) So, I took as many photos as I could and absorbed as much of the moment as I could without lingering too long...


The whole thing was still pretty magical, though. I felt like a character out of one of Calvino's Difficult Loves stories, or maybe from Marcovaldo. I had a little chunk of happenstance, a little chunk of time and space all to myself. It's these little moments that make everything a little brighter. I have quite a few more photos of this, so maybe I'll post more. We'll see.