Black Light Photography

[bobt54]

This is my first attempt at it. Here is one example.



The entire gallery is here:

http://www.pbase.com/bobt54/blacklight

Show me how it is done. Let me see yours.

[photoarrow]

Hi Bob, Well I think you have just solved a "mystery" that I've been thinking about over the past 43 years. Is anyone familiar with the work of Wynn Bullock? He was mainly famous for his 8X10 nudes in nature, but in his later years he was doing this wildly colorful stuff. Years ago I attended a lecture at American Federation of Arts in Carmel, California at which he spoke and gave a slide show -- but he steadfastly refused everyone's questions about how he was making his photos. Many in the audience actually got quite upset with him that he wouldn't reveal his secret... It was evident that he was using chunks of glass, but I knew it had to be more than just colored lights that he was using. I don't know why I never put 2 and 2 together, because a few years later, in the psychadellic '60's, I worked in a poster shop selling hundreds of blacklights and thousands of blacklight posters. So, Bob, how did you do these? Just turn off the lights and shine a blacklight on the object? Any additional info, Bob?

[bobt54]

Good thing I am not like Mr. Bullock.

I guess this is the perfect application of the phrase "learn one, do one, teach one" I just attended a talk on how to do this and was so impressed with the results and how easy and inexpensive it was to achieve that I went out and found what I needed to create these images. Here is the laundry list:

At least 2 black lights. Found them at Walmart for $10 a piece. You want your fluorescent surfaces to really light up. It helps with the auto focus.
Some kind of reflector. Tin foil, balled up and then flattened back out covering cardboard or fibre board will work.
Fluorescent paper. Make sure it does say fluorescent and is not just bright.
Mount the paper to old paper towel tubes.
Black background that is not reflective.
Pitch dark room.
Tripod as your exposures will be long. I set my camera to aperture priority.
Other fluorescent objects and things such as paint, markers, toys, etc.
Shiny glass or metallic subjects to photograph.

The colors you see are reflections from the illuminated tubes. Some of the images had additional work I done in PSP. I was told that this works equally well in film as with digital.

As I alluded to before, this is my first attempt. I am interested in seeing how the rest of you have done this. I would also be interested in how you did it.

[vanderstouw]

this is a film process whereby you take 200 speed slide film and shoot it at 10,000 speed, then develop it (by way of a b/w neg development process and then a c-41 bleach process) to get a negative... i shot this shot w/ black light this way. the process causes super-saturated colors and a strong grain structure.

[sheils]

There's a great blacklight gallery at
http://www.pbase.com/tglass0000/tims_blacklight_gallery

Cheers Sheila

[abv]

[quote="bobt54"]
Some kind of reflector. Tin foil, balled up and then flattened back out covering cardboard or fibre board will work.
Fluorescent paper. Make sure it does say fluorescent and is not just bright.
Mount the paper to old paper towel tubes.
Black background that is not reflective.
Pitch dark room.


Even translating word after word, I still have problems to understand how to build that stuff.
What the hell do you do with the fluorescent paper ? How do you fix it ?
Could anyone show a pic of its own installation ?
I love bobt54 picture and would really try this
Thanks in advance
ABV

[bobt54]

Some kind of reflector. Tin foil, balled up and then flattened back out covering cardboard or fibre board will work.
Fluorescent paper. Make sure it does say fluorescent and is not just bright.
Mount the paper to old paper towel tubes.
Black background that is not reflective.
Pitch dark room.


Even translating word after word, I still have problems to understand how to build that stuff.
What the hell do you do with the fluorescent paper ? How do you fix it ?
Could anyone show a pic of its own installation ?
I love bobt54 picture and would really try this
Thanks in advance
ABV

Take the flourescent paper and wrap it around the tube. The flourescent paper creates the color that you see reflected off of the object that you are photographing. I will post a picture of all of this shortly. I don't have everything quite assembled the way I would like it yet.

[bobt54]

http://www.pbase.com/bobt54/image/48869821