Photographing the Unseen World

Adrian’s teaching experience gave us all the chance to understand and be impressed by the wealth of knowledge he has. Although we might know a bit about fluorescent light, did we know there was a difference of effect with fluorescent reflectance imaging? And then there was the technical knowledge necessary to achieve the desired effect. The scientific input on the makeup of light was part of the learning, and so well explained.

Adrian began with a brief round up of the history of this fascinating subject and gave examples of early photographers exploring ideas using plate photography, Harold Edgerton (the ‘milk drip’ photo); Eadweard Muybridge (a horse galloping –all 4 feet off the ground?) But with modern equipment, flashes as well as cameras all was to be revealed.

The techniques were all so well illustrated with bats in a banana leaf: humming birds with sharp bodies and vibrating wings as they drank the nectar; the chameleon with its tongue reaching and ingesting its prey; a puff ball puffing its spores into the air with a dark background, black velvet is useful as it shows the patterns; ash and oak demonstrating the stream of pollen as it is released as well as the patterns formed by their spiralling seeds; using a tuning fork to encourage the snowdrop to get its pollen to fall as the camera released its shutter. And so it continued. Please look at Adrian’s website.

The second half concentrated us on appreciating the differences between infra red, not perhaps Adrian’s favourite, but to ultra violet which is! A more detailed understanding of the colours in light was needed for this aspect. The effects on plants and flowers was amazing and ‘ooohs’ and ‘ahhhs’ could be heard as Adrian demonstrated the use of a special ultra violet 365 (not 395) torch on a variety of subjects – a mouldy Satsuma was very effective; lichens all so different; a gin and tonic looked cool blue; cut any fruit in half and see the effects- not always what you might expect; the lobster was quite dramatic!

Adrian rounded off with the warning of a great deal of expense for a very complex set up with multiple flashes and converted camera for a specific result. His knowledge and expertise had us all entranced for the whole evening and I think many were off to purchase an ultra violet torch!

A terrific night of unexpected images! Thank you Adrian for being so engaging. Excellent to know you are now a Dorset‘ local’!

Jane Tearle