Bubblegumkitten

High speed explosive photography by Alan Sailer

I saw an interesting article on the Telegraph website on Alan Sailer’s high speed photography experiments. His pictures involve photographing objects at the precise moment they are destroyed by a pellet from an air rifle. The photo’s have really inspired me as to the beauty that can be found in the smallest things for a fraction of a second, some of his images are stunningly pretty, others destructive and exciting and some just look incredibly fun to shoot.

I was really struck by not only the beautiful and surprising images he has managed to capture but also the time and creativity it takes to sit and experiment with this kind of photography. You only get one go at each shot so discovering the best mix of jelly or sweet filled Christmas tree baubles to explode is really quite a time consuming job. The baubles filled with water are quite beautiful and create a really interesting effect. How he managed to capture a photo of a rifle pellet being split exactly in two by a razor blade mid flight and frame it so elegantly is really beyond me – I am guessing it took a lot of patience and time and an amazingly good rifle laser sight to line it all up.

The images capture a moment we rarely get to see in such fine detail, that split second between whole and shattered in all its frozen beauty. Some of these images are fun and colourful silliness with paint balls and fruit the victim of the camera – interesting images but very much what many people would explode on camera if they had the skill. But the other images utilising glass and water or Christmas baubles filled with jelly are really very mesmerising and haunting images, almost magical despite being a portrayal of something very real and, I guess in some ways as ordinary, as a piece of glass shattering.

I am also highly impressed that he has managed to create such vibrant images using an entry level DSLR (A Nikon D40 – the one down from mine!) and a one-microsecond flash unit setup he has built himself. Not that the D40 is bad – but this really proves that camera alone does not a good photographer make – it is the talent and patience of this man and his skill to set up such an accurate flash and setup as well as have the inspiration to take these photos which has created them.

They also look mighty fun to do. If I ever get my hands on such a setup I would also try to explode things I am sure…

now if only someone would lend me a millionth of a second flashgun…

A lovely photo of a dye filled plastic container exploding and looking rather like a movie special effect.

The probably soon to become famous shot of a rifle pellet being sliced in half mid air by a razor blade.

links:
More amazing photos by Alan on his Flickr stream.
The original article I read is here.