When I was photographing eyes a few weeks ago I came across a fascinating phenomenon:
The human iris and especially blue irises produce rainbow coloured gradients under cross polarization.
Birefringence: How to photograph rainbow colors at home
What does “Cross Polarization” mean?
Cross polarization is a technique that allows us to virtually eliminate specular highlights from images by using polarized light, but it also holds a lot of creative potential, as it can be used to bring out eye-catching rainbow gradients in subjects such as plastics, ice and certain crystals.
In the industry this technique is used e.g. to locate areas of stress in plastic, but it also holds a lot of potential for interesting macro images:
Create rainbow flares with a CD for colorful macro photography
The glorious colours of summer are fading away, and the windy weather makes outdoor macros difficult. In other words, it’s the perfect time to take photography inside and stage creative photos with things around the house. Anything could be an ingredient in your creative recipe. These ingredients can be simple things, such as in this example: A CD, a Milkweed seed and some water, put together on a reflective piece of glass, made for the images in this article.
Light-paint the rainbow with these awesome DIY light tubes
This is just too awesome. These rainbow coloured light tubes are the creation of light painter and photographer Zach Smidt. We’ve featured Zach’s work before, and for good reason. He’s constantly pushing himself and his work. To create something a little different and special. And his new rainbow light painting tube images sure fall under that “special” category.
DIYP got in touch with Zach to find out a little more about how they were made. Zach also shared some more images with us created with these light tubes.
Incredibly rare 360º rainbow captured in Ireland using a drone
More often than not, rainbows appear as a row of colorful arches in the sky. It’s a different story though when you’re looking at it from the perspective of a peregrine–a view ever so wonderfully captured by an Irish drone operator last week.[Read More…]
This 4K video shows rainbow paint spinning off a drill at 2,500 frames per second
What do you do when you have Phantom cameras capable of capturing 4K video at upwards of 1,000 and 2,500 frames per second? Why, you use them to film even the most unusual and mundane things to show how life slowed down can make for beautiful imagery.
That’s exactly what The Slow Mo Guys Dan Gruchy and Gavin Free do. And for their latest video, they show what it looks like when you spin a drill bit at full speed while a rainbow gradient of paint is attached. As you can imagine, the results are incredible.[Read More…]
A Photo Capturing Both A Rainbow and a Lightning In A Single Exposure
Photographer Greg McCown had a lifelong dream to capture a rainbow and a lightning in a single image. This may seem crazy but if there is one place in the US where the weather is crazy enough to pull this off, it has to be Arizona.
Two days ago, his dream came true. Greg was driving on the I-10 and was hit by a wet microburst which brought the traffic close to a standstill and visibility down to 20 feet. Seeing the rainbow Greg decided to chase it and try to get his prize shot. Luckily he did.
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