Creating With Light and Plastic

I really love it when artists -or anyone else for that matter- can prove to the world that not everything is done and said by showing us new ways of working with "old" media. This is one of those cases.

Against what your first impression may be, these images are not digital, nor have they been altered. They are not pictures of new viruses, distant galaxies or some type of ultrasound patterns either.

They are the result of the work of British artist Alan Jaras who decided to experiment with plastic, lights and a camera without lens.

According to his own words, "these are analog images of the refraction patterns of a beam of light passing through various transparent objects. The image is captured directly on to 35mm film, no camera lens is used (this is a photogram using film instead of photographic paper)...Colour is introduced by placing specially prepared coloured filters directly in the light beam. These are analogue image and has not been computer generated or colour treated. The colours you see are a faithful reproduction of those captured on film. "

I find it very interesting that the innovation is in the process itself and the results are all very different but all stunning...

At the same time they are inspirational too and they could be used for some creative exercises... if you go through his pictures you will probably be able to "see" so many totally different things that it may blow your mind. Just try it: take one, write down all the things that it reminds you of, and then ask someone else to do the same... my guess is that if you do that with a couple of friends, you may come up with a pretty long list!

In fact I named them for what I could see in each case, but it was a difficult decision considering all the possibilities.

I couldn't find his website, but he has all these pictures and more in Flickr, so if you like what you see, make sure you visit his "Bending Lights" set, his "Twisting Lights" one and the "Taming Light" set.