Tag: minimalism

Fubbles: The Ephemeral Made Eternal

The photograph “Fubbles,” taken in 2014 by Greg Urbano at Fort de Soto Park, captures a soap bubble mid-flight, showcasing early artistic vision. Enhanced by motion blur, it elevates the bubble into fine art, revealing themes of transformation and impermanence. Urbano’s technical choices demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of photography and artistry.

Large elongated soap bubble stretching through the air against a cloudy sky, photographed with a Nikon D5100 and 35mm lens at high shutter speed.
This photograph captures a long, tube‑shaped soap bubble drifting through the air against a cloudy sky at Fort De Soto Park in Florida. The bubble’s reflective surface and fluid form create an abstract, fine‑art appearance, with motion blur added during post‑processing to enhance the sense of movement. The image was taken on July 27, 2014 using a Nikon D5100 with a 35mm lens at ƒ/6.3, 1/1250s, ISO 100. It is part of the Top 100 Journey project and represents early experimental work exploring motion, shape, and atmospheric minimalism.

In the opening chapter of Greg Urbano’s photographic journey, “Fubbles” stands as a remarkable testament to the artist’s early instinct for transforming the mundane into the sublime. Created in 2014 during an afternoon at Fort de Soto Park, this image captures far more than a simple bubble in flight—it reveals an emerging photographer’s understanding of light, form, and the delicate boundary between documentation and fine art.

The composition presents a soap bubble mid-flight, its translucent membrane caught in a state of graceful distortion. What immediately strikes the viewer is the dreamlike quality of the motion blur, which Urbano candidly notes was enhanced in post-processing. This creative decision speaks to an important aspect of his early development: the willingness to move beyond strict documentary realism toward a more interpretive visual language. The blur transforms the bubble from a fleeting childhood toy into something altogether more ethereal—a meditation on impermanence itself.

Shot with a Nikon D5100 at 35mm, the technical execution demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of exposure for such translucent subjects. The aperture of f/6.3 provides sufficient depth while maintaining the isolation of the bubble against the softly rendered background. Most significantly, the shutter speed of 1/1250s at ISO 100 captures crystalline detail in the bubble’s surface, preserving the swirling patterns and subtle gradations that give the sphere its otherworldly quality. These technical choices reveal an artist already thinking beyond the moment of capture to the final image.

The monochromatic palette proves essential to the photograph’s success. By stripping away color, Urbano directs our attention to form, texture, and tonal relationships. The bubble’s translucent skin becomes a study in graduated grays, while the blurred background creates a tonal symphony that could easily hang beside the work of mid-century modernist photographers. This treatment elevates a whimsical subject matter into the realm of fine art abstraction.

Within the context of “Chapter 1 — Beginnings,” this photograph occupies a fascinating position. It demonstrates that even in his earliest work, Urbano possessed the vision to see artistic potential in unexpected places. The playful title “Fubbles” maintains a connection to the image’s origins—fun with bubbles—while the execution reveals serious artistic ambitions. This duality between playfulness and sophistication would become a hallmark of his developing style.

The photograph also speaks to broader themes of transformation and transience. A soap bubble exists for mere seconds before bursting, yet through photography, Urbano arrests that moment, preserving what cannot be preserved. The enhanced motion blur serves not as deception but as emphasis, amplifying the sense of temporal fluidity that defines the bubble’s brief existence. In this way, the image becomes metaphorical—a meditation on photography itself as the art of stopping time.

For viewers encountering Urbano’s work through his Top 100 Journey project, “Fubbles” offers essential insight into his artistic foundations. Here is a photographer unafraid to experiment, willing to blend capture with creation, and possessed of an eye that finds beauty in the transient and overlooked. The bubble, forever frozen in its graceful dissolution, invites us to reconsider our own relationship with impermanence and the extraordinary potential hidden within ordinary moments.

The Gateway Image: Passagrille Jetty Silhouette and the Dawn of a Photographic Vision

In a 2014 photograph taken at Passagrille Beach, Greg Urbano captures a stunning sunset over the Gulf of Mexico, which inspires his beach photography. Featuring a silhouetted fisherman against an orange sky, the image combines technical skill and emotional depth, symbolizing Urbano’s artistic journey and his evolving relationship with landscape imagery.

Silhouette of a lone fisherman standing on a rock jetty at Passagrille Beach during an orange Gulf of Mexico sunset, photographed with a Nikon D7100 at 24mm.
A 2014 sunset silhouette of a fisherman on the rock jetty at Passagrille Beach, Florida.

In the context of Greg Urbano’s “Beginnings” chapter, this 2014 sunset photograph from Passagrille Beach holds particular significance—not merely as a technically accomplished image, but as a foundational moment that would shape the photographer’s artistic trajectory for years to come. The image captures that precise intersection where technical competence meets emotional resonance, creating what Urbano himself identifies as his “inspiration for years of beach photography.”

The compositional structure reveals a photographer already thinking in strong geometric terms. The jetty’s dark pathway cuts through the frame with striking linearity, creating a powerful visual corridor that draws the viewer’s eye toward the observation platform at the terminus. This use of leading lines demonstrates sophisticated spatial awareness, transforming the rocky breakwater into a narrative device—a journey into the sublime moment captured in the sky above.

What distinguishes this photograph from countless other sunset images is Urbano’s commitment to silhouette as an artistic choice. Shot at ƒ/11 with a relatively slow shutter speed of 1/20 second at ISO 100, the exposure prioritizes the spectacular gradation of color in the sky while allowing the foreground elements to fall into deep shadow. The lone fisherman—barely discernible yet unmistakably present—becomes an everyman figure, a contemplative sentinel witnessing the day’s transition. This human element, reduced to pure form, prevents the image from becoming merely a spectacular sky study; instead, it grounds the natural drama in human experience.

The technical execution warrants examination. Using the Nikon D7100 with a 10-24mm lens at its maximum 24mm focal length, Urbano captures an expansive view that encompasses both the architectural elements of the jetty and the full breadth of the atmospheric display. The cropped sensor’s field of view provides enough width to establish context while maintaining focus on the central narrative. The aperture choice of ƒ/11 ensures sharpness throughout the frame, from the textured rocks in the immediate foreground to the distant horizon where sea meets sky.

The color palette—ranging from deep oranges and burning yellows to subtle purples and grays in the cloud formations—displays nature at its most theatrical. Yet Urbano’s restraint in post-processing (evident in the natural tonal transitions) allows the scene to speak with authenticity rather than hyperbole. This restraint would become a hallmark of his approach, distinguishing his work from the over-saturated aesthetic that dominates much contemporary landscape photography.

Perhaps most revealing is Urbano’s own reflection on this image as inspirational—a north star that guided subsequent explorations. One can trace forward from this moment to understand his ongoing fascination with the Gulf Coast’s theatrical sunsets, his appreciation for human elements within natural landscapes, and his sophisticated use of silhouette as a storytelling device. The photograph represents not an endpoint but a beginning, a discovery of visual vocabulary that would be refined and expanded throughout his career.

In the broader context of the “Beginnings” chapter, this Passagrille jetty image serves as both literal and metaphorical gateway—the concrete walkway leading toward beauty, the artist’s path toward photographic maturity, and the viewer’s invitation into Urbano’s evolving body of work.