Milton Feinberg, 89; retired photographer was museum's 'Mr. Bubbles'

To teach a lesson about scientific observation, Milt Feinberg once replaced the photo of his smiling face on the identification badge he wore as a Museum of Science volunteer with a picture of a gorilla.

Several weeks passed before anyone noticed, perhaps because the eyes of those around him could not quite get past his clothes. Mr. Feinberg liked to pair red plaid pants with bright orange shirts that were the hue of life jackets.

"And he was not colorblind," Polly Feinberg of Hull said of her father's off-kilter couture. "He knew what he was doing."

After a career as a photographer during which he often shot pictures of Boston Symphony Orchestra musicians, a decidedly nonplaid crowd, Mr. Feinberg began volunteering in retirement at the museum. There he was known as Mr. Bubbles for his science demonstrations that enchanted young and old alike.

He died May 30 in Brigham and Women's Hospital of complications of injuries suffered in a car accident while he was driving home from the museum. Mr. Feinberg was 89 and had lived in Quincy for the past four years after more than a half-century in Brighton.

Suzanne Berryman, program manager of exhibit interpretation, met Mr. Feinberg on her first day of work at the Museum of Science.

"I was completely blown away when I saw Miltie," she said. "He had this huge crowd around him, and he had them just captivated. He really did become famous at the museum as Mr. Bubbles. It's not often that I have visitors asking me for a specific program, but people would come up to me on a Saturday and say, 'Hey, where's Mr. Bubbles?' "

In the early 1980s, Mr. Feinberg and his wife, Barbara, began volunteering at the museum. Mr. Feinberg created a program about the properties of water, using bubbles to demonstrate surface tension. His tools were water and the detergent he needed to create bubbly suds.

"He showed how if you have a wet hand you can push your finger into the bubble without it breaking," his daughter said. "And you can actually bounce a bubble on the sleeve of your shirt. That was his big trick."

Said Berryman: "He would challenge everybody to think about what they were seeing. He cared passionately about teaching, and teaching science and getting people to think about bubbles. He was all about having a good time, too."

On the table in Mr. Feinberg's apartment in a Quincy complex for senior citizens "was a whole pile of books about the universe, where does it end, how did it begin. He was extremely curious about everything," his daughter said.

Milton I. Feinberg was born in Boston and grew up in Roxbury, graduating from Roxbury Latin School. His daughter said that although he graduated from Northeastern University, where he was studied engineering, Mr. Feinberg found his calling when he worked for a photographer on Newbury Street as a student co-op.

He had met his future wife a few years earlier, as a teenager, when "he belonged to a group of guys called the Pioneer Club and a friend asked if they needed dates for a dance," his daughter said. "He said, 'I have twin sisters.' "

One of the twins was Barbara Alkon. During World War II, Mr. Feinberg was a lieutenant in the US Army and served stateside.

"She went down to Kentucky, and they married underneath the swords," their daughter said. "She was the love of his life and his favorite model - the pictures of my mother that I'm unearthing now. She loved to model, and she was as completely comfortable in front of a camera as Elle MacPherson."

He named a sailboat, the Lady Barbara, for his wife, who died in 1996. They liked to cruise the waters around Cape Cod.

While much of Mr. Feinberg's photography work involved shooting weddings and formal portraits, "he loved music, especially symphonic music," his daughter said.

Mr. Feinberg began photographing the Boston Symphony and "would sit in the middle of the orchestra," she said. "It was totally fulfilling to combine both loves. His soul was always an artist's soul. You wouldn't think to look at him, but he really was an artist, and I don't think engineering ever would have made him as happy as sitting in the middle of the orchestra, taking pictures."

Among his publications was "Community of Sound: Boston Symphony and Its World of Players," a 1979 book written by Louis Snyder that was illustrated with Mr. Feinberg's photographs.

About two decades ago, Polly Feinberg started the Tender Tappers, a tap dance group at her Braintree studio for those 55 and older, and she invited her parents to join.

"He was always a dancer," she said. "He and my mother did the whole jitterbug-ballroom thing, but nothing formal. He tapped until he was 88, performing in the concerts at the studio."

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Feinberg leaves another daughter, Joan Neviackas of Decatur, Ill., and two grandsons.

Polly Feinberg said her father "didn't want any serious rites, and he didn't want anything gloomy or sad," so the family will hold a public gathering at 7 p.m. tomorrow in her Dance Forever studio in Braintree. Champagne and chocolate, both of which Mr. Feinberg loved, will be served, a trumpeter will play the World War II-era song "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," and there will be dancing.