Images

Figure 1

This is a picture of my 4-year-old son drawing out a flowing bubble:

You can see in the background a piece of translucent plastic which is used to diffuse the light source for the colorful images, below.

Figure 2

I like the color palette and effect here, even though it is a little blurry:

Flow is from left to right. The area imaged is approximately 8cm by 24cm.

Figure 3

Flow is from top to bottom. Area shown is approx. 2cm by 10cm.

Figure 4

Flow is from top to bottom. Area shown is approx. 2cm by 10cm.

Technique

In the above photos, we use a very bright (and hot!) theatrical light behind a plastic diffuser (signage material, 60% transmittance). Behind the film is a flat cardboard painted flat black. This was much more light-absorbing than the sanded and primed plywood, with the same black paint.

Fastest exposures are at 1/8000 second. The film moves at about 3m/s, so a 1/1000sec exposure blurs features smaller than 3mm.

Our imagery archive is here