What is Kirlian Photography?

Kirlian (pronounced kur'-lee-uhn ) photography, is sometimes called; high voltage photography, electro-photography, electronography, electromagnetic discharge imaging (EDI), and radiation field photography. It is called Kirlian photography in honor of the Russian researchers Semyon and Valentina Kirlian, who pursued and developed this method of photography for over 30 years. Although they did not discover this method of electro-photography, they devoted a lifetime to studying its potential and made claims for its use as a diagnostic tool. Kirlian photography uses high-voltage, low-current electricity to create a corona discharge around an object. The feeble light from the corona discharge can expose film or a CCD element in a digital camera.

Shooting Kirlian Images

I have been shooting Kirlian images with standard 35MM cameras and digital cameras. I originally started by using 4" x 5" sheet film. Below is the digital camera photography set-up I used. The digital camera must be able to take long exposures of approximately 8- 16 seconds, and a macro setting certainly helps.

The images were shot either in a dark room or using a light tight enclosure over the Kirlian photography set-up.



Kirlian Quarter 5 second exposure.



This first image of the U.S. quater above shows the typical coloration one can expect from shoting Kirlian Images through a transparent discharge plate. The two images following show a few possible photo-manipulations one can accomplish with the base image in a photo-editing program like photoshop.



Kirlian Quarter using Photoshop Glowing edges filter.



Kirlian Quarter modifying hue and saturation.



The following images are basically unmodified. The only manipulation I did was to clean up some digital noise in the images that accumulates during long exposure times. You can judge from the images of the quarter above that photo-manipulation can enhance and define the images further, possibly into art.



Flower 20 second exposure



Branch 15 second exposure,



Adjustable Wrench 7 second exposure



Paper Clips 10 second exposure



Pliers 8 second exposure



Ninja Star 10 second exposure



Circuit Board exposure time 20 seconds.

Comments?



These are numerous limitations one has to work with when shooting Kirlian images. This is a high voltage contact print photography. Even so these are basic Kirlian images and there is room for improvement both in the raw images and in photo manipulations. I am interested in comments and opinions on whether kirlian images like this can be considered art prints.

The following is the parts list: